Letters and Numbers

Is the unauthorised copying of media, more commonly referred to as 'piracy' really one of the biggest threats to authors and other creatives? Or are there far more important things to be concerned about? In this final episode of season 1 of Letters & Numbers, we look at the actual financial impacts of piracy, the statistics which show how being overly worried about piracy can actually backfire, and explore who is actually ripping off artists - spoiler alert, it's not those who love to read. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! And don't forget to subscribe for season 2, where we'll take this focus on money to its logical conclusion and explore the role of finances not just in media, but our lives in general! *The introduction of this episode has been replaced to fix an editing error* Links from this episode: Amazon Noir 'I can get any novel I want in 30 seconds' Lithub on American book buying Read Sarah's latest novella, Blush & Bone on Smashwords or Amazon Subscribe to Sarah and Simon's new podcast, Blue Zones: Revisited

The previous two episodes shone a light on some of the subtle forms of #bookbigotry in publishing: writers may show prejudices for or against books depending on their format (physical vs. ebook), and their platform (Amazon vs. 'the rest'). In this episode, we turn to explore prejudices based on location (i.e. US vs. 'international'). Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The ⁠Indie Author⁠ and ⁠Indie Reader⁠ Manifesto YouTube: ⁠'Mockolate' on Friends⁠ and ⁠debunking videos⁠ ⁠Booko.com.au⁠

The previous episode shone a light on three subtle forms of #bookbigotry in publishing: writers may show prejudices for or against books depending on their format, platform, and location of origin - starting with a focus on format (physical vs. ebooks). In this episode, we turn to explore prejudices based on platform (i.e. Amazon vs. 'the rest'). Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The ⁠Indie Author⁠ and ⁠Indie Reader⁠ Manifesto YouTube: ⁠'Mockolate' on Friends⁠ and ⁠debunking videos⁠ ⁠Booko.com.au⁠

Carolyn Howard-Johnson uses the term #bookbigotry to describe snap judgements about a book on the basis that it is independently published - without so much as looking at the description, the author's bio, or even glimpsing the cover. Over three episodes, we'll examine how readers, reviewers, publishing professionals, and even writers may show prejudices for or against books depending on their format, platform, and location of origin - starting with a focus on format (physical vs. ebooks). Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Kindle sales figures eReader sales figures Sarah's blog series on book bigotry

As much as I love books, I’ve never been a big fan of book-related merchandise, either as a reader or as a writer. This is a rant about literacy, capitalism… and foul-tasting beans. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Harry Potter Wiki exchange rate, bean flavours Dempster et al. (2016) Sarah's novels critiquing immigration policy and capitalistic advertising

Don't worry, I don't mean how many books you should be allowed to buy, borrow or steal! Rather, in this episode we ask what is a reasonable limit when it comes to book hauls from conferences and giveaways. Should YouTubers be obligated to review the books they take for free? Should bookstagram accounts actually read the books they promote? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Stacked Books Publishers Weekly Sarah's unboxing video

For anyone aiming to become an author, the statistics on what happens to books once they hit the shelves aren't all that rosy. Around a third of all traditionally-published books that make it to bookstore shelves are returned to the publishers - then remaindered, or shredded. In this episode, we take a look at Carolyn Howard-Johnson's tips on how to avoid our own books landing in the warehouse - or worse, in the shredder. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠The Frugal Book Promoter⁠ ⁠Heather Demetrios' article⁠ ⁠Hannah Holt's survey⁠

In the last episode, we looked at how online traditionally-published authors are via an examination of 12 bestselling authors. A lack of a social media platform doesn't seem to hamper these authors - but what about indies who don't have the same marketing power? This time, we examine a dozen indie indie authors to see how important social media is for them. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Would I Be Better Off Writing test Sarah's books Sarah's blog

Low-effort ghost-written books 'by' celebrities have long been a thing, but this type of publication exploded in popularity with the rise of internet celebrities who have amassed large followings. Meanwhile, as we saw in the previous episode, publishers themselves can hardly be said to have leveraged social media to the same extent. So is making popular videos a viable path to 'literary' success? In this episode, we examine 12 case studies of bestselling authors' social media practices to find out just how important online celebrity is for real writers. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Simon Fraser University research Gigi Griffis' survey of readers Penguin and AMC infographics

In this episode, we begin the final mini-series in this first season of Letters and Numbers, turning our attention to the promotion of creative works. The real intersection between letters and numbers: where words meet money. Authors are often advised that social media is 'key' to success. But very rarely is any evidence provided to back up this assertion. As readers, I suspect most of us would prefer that our favourite writers spend their time... well, writing, rather than dancing on TikTok. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Book Business Magazine 2014, 2016 Joanna Penn and Kristen Eckstein's advice University of Pennsylvania research

Have you ever wondered what Paris Hilton's The Hottie & The Nottie and Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas have in common? Well, if loglines are so crucial in convincing film studios to finance a film, then surely the films which attract the most funding (regardless of how poorly received the resulting film is) must have stellar loglines... right? And the movies which attract the least funding (regardless of how profitable the final movie is) must have poor loglines... right? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠Sample Smashwords description⁠ ⁠Sample Amazon description⁠ ⁠Grab Sarah's logline infographic

Loglines were originally designed more for the busy Hollywood executive than for the final audience of a movie - or the readers of a book. So why might they be useful for creative indies, like writers and filmmakers? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sample Smashwords description Sample Amazon description Grab Sarah's logline infographic

A strong tagline was the one thing all of the New York Times bestsellers examined in the previous episode had in common. Yet, just one third of less successful novels include a tagline in their descriptions. Of all of the ingredients of a book description, the tagline has to be one of the most accessible. Your book doesn’t need to have won a major prize or sold a million copies or had a celebrity endorsement or a write-up in a well-respected journal to have a snazzy tagline. So it’s worth spending a few minutes learning how to craft a tagline that will set your book apart from the less successful books in your genre – and may even catapult it into more exclusive company. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Live Write Breathe on taglines Penning and Planning on taglines Read the tagline of AutoCEO

Now that more books are purchased online, including print books, it’s vital that we understand how the best book descriptions work, and what role blurbs play. Each book has its own distinct flavour, but the professionalism with which it is presented, and the quality of its ingredients – cover, spine, blurb, formatting – do not differ wildly from book to book. So it is perhaps unsurprising that the blurbs covered over the last five episodes in this mini series on blurbs and book descriptions followed something akin to a ‘secret recipe’. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Sarah's blurb cheatsheet (for FREE)⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Example of a poorly-formatted description⁠ (scroll to end) ⁠Example of a well-formatted description⁠

Summarising all of the lessons we've learned about blurbs over the past few episodes, here are nine rules it's worth keeping in mind when writing your own - or wanting to understand why a blurb you're reading doesn't quite work! What kind of blurb makes you start reading? Let me know! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The nine rules ⁠⁠⁠Download Sarah's blurb cheatsheet (for FREE)⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Get Sarah's novel Propaganda Wars

Over the last two episodes, we've explored what makes a successful - and an unsuccessful - blurb. In this episode, we update the numbers, to see whether these patterns still hold! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's post on the definition of satire ⁠⁠Download Sarah's blurb cheatsheet (for FREE)⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Get Sarah's debut novel Number Eight Crispy Chicken

The previous episode of Letters and Numbers focused on the patterns in successful blurbs, so it’s only fitting that this time, we take a look at unsuccessful blurbs. After all, sometimes we learn more from examining (our and others’) mistakes than we do by only looking at examples of best practice. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠TMP's worst blurbs⁠ ⁠Download Sarah's blurb cheatsheet (for FREE)⁠ ⁠Get Sarah's debut novel Number Eight Crispy Chicken⁠

We all know that we’re not supposed to to judge a book by its cover. But can blurbs give us readers a clue as to whether a book is worth reading… or give us writers a hint as to whether it will sell? In this episode, we’ll take a look at what features the blurbs of successful books have in common. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Get Derek Murphy's Guerilla Publishing (for FREE) Sarah's post on successful blurbs Sarah's books on Amazon

Over the previous two episodes, we've looked at the features that the titles of best-selling - and least-selling - novels have in common. But what about non-fiction books? In this episode, we undertake a similar analysis of non-fiction books - and you'll get an exclusive audio preview of Sarah Neofield's latest novel, AutoCEO! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's post on best-selling titles with graphs Sarah's post on least-selling titles with graphs Buy your copy of AutoCEO

If the most important ingredient of any book's cover is the title, what effect does a bad title have? In the previous episode, we looked at what factors the titles of best-selling books have in common. In this episode, we crunch the numbers to find out whether the titles of least-selling books follow a similar pattern - or whether they have their own 'trash title' DNA. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's post on trash titles with graphs Watch Folding Ideas' video Contrapreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins Zach Bowder's Amazon Prime infographic

Perhaps the most important ingredient of any book's cover is the title. What do the titles of best-selling novels have in common? In this episode, we crunch the numbers to find out! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠Sarah's blog⁠ ⁠Sarah's YouTube channel⁠ ⁠Sarah's books on Amazon

Having examined what makes a good front, back, and spine, our next question has to be - how do we tie all of these elements together. In this episode, we talk about how to continue the narrative of the front cover by ensuring the spine and back tell the same story. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's blog (with pictures) Tea and Ink and The Ephemerist Derek Murphy's free mockup maker

If back covers are an after-thought, then the spine is often an after-after-thought. Yet, the spine of a book really is, as the name suggests, the backbone of any printed book. In this very special 30th episode, we explore the two reasons that the spine of a book deserves our special attention. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's blog Sarah's YouTube channel Sarah's books on Amazon

In the last two episodes, we discussed what distinguishes a good book cover from one of the three 'bad' kinds of covers. But so far, we've only talked about the front. What about that after-thought - the back cover? Why do so many books come have back covers that looked like they were tacked on by a completely different designer? And how important is it, anyway? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠Sarah's blog (with pictures & checklist)⁠ Research from ⁠BookFly⁠ and ⁠Reedsy⁠ ⁠C.R. Wraith⁠ and ⁠Sarah Neofield⁠ on Amazon

Having explored firmly established that, whether or not we should, we do judge books by their covers, in this episode, we take a look at how (some) 'bad' covers... might actually be good. I identify three types of 'bad' book covers: the ugly-but-honest cover, the 'pretty little liar' cover, and the worst cover of all. Learn how to identify each of them - and why one of these categories might not be so bad after all. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's blog (with pictures & chart) Kindle Cover Disasters on Tumblr Jo Sullivan and Patricia Tiffany Morris

Having explored the role of publishers and platforms, authors, and writing and genre, in this episode we dive into a new theme - book covers! This mini-series adds a visual element to our usual focus on letters and numbers, so you might want to follow the links below to feast your eyes on all of the gorgeous - and not-so-gorgeous! - covers mentioned in each episode. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's blog (with pictures) Michelle Raab marketing Send Sarah your worst book covers

Everybody agrees - originals are always better than sequels, aren't they? Then why do readers and audiences tend to rate the later parts in the most successful book, movie, and TV series so much higher than the first installment? In this episode, we'll take a deep dive into readers' and audience responses to series - and what the numbers really mean. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's blog (with graphs) A Song of Spring on Goodreads ⁠Sarah's books on Amazon

A lot of what goes into determining whether you becoming a mega bestselling author comes down to chance: being born in the right place at the right time. Other factors relate to what you write - and importantly, how much. But there is one other important factor: character. In this episode, we break down the common characteristics of the characters crafted by authors whose books have sold more than a hundred million copies in total. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Book Riot's list of the longest series Character name inspiration ⁠Sarah's latest novel AutoCEO

Having explored how long a chapter should be, we add these all together and ask how long should a book be? Is there a magic number that will make your debut book an instant bestseller? A bestselling author who can serve as a model for first-time writers? The answer isn't as simple as you might think. For one thing, whether you're a first-time or already successful author has a big impact on how long your book should be. So does whether you're publishing on your own, or are at the mercy of a traditional publisher. And whether you're publishing online only, or in print as well. What's missing from this list? The demands of the story. In this episode, we'll uncover why that is - and what it really takes to become a bestselling debut author. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The costs involved in printing lengthy novels The Bestseller Code Sarah's books on Amazon

In this episode of Letters and Numbers, we answer one of the most commonly-asked questions from first-time authors: how long should each chapter be? Taking a look at the bestselling books of the last couple of years, we graph the numbers to come up with a suggested range of words - and explain why there is no "magic number". Listen on to discover who writes long chapters - who writes short ones - and most importantly, why? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The Bestseller Code Click here to listen along with all of the graphs Sarah's books on Amazon

In the last episode of Letters and Numbers, we asked why 85% of the top 100 "satires" on Amazon are actually romance novels. In this episode, we'll take a look at the other surprising thing those 85 books have in common: They were all published by indie authors. What are the factors that make an independently-published book "successful"? And how big a role does genre play? How possible is it to rise to the top a highly-competitive field like romance? And is it possible to succeed at all in an unpopular genre like satire? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The original blog post The Discoverability series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Sarah's books on Amazon

In this episode of Letters and Numbers, we'll continue our discussion of genre by exploring the weirdly relationship between political satires and erotic romance. We'll crunch the numbers to examine why writers of the most successful genre in modern history (romance) have decided to list their novels a category that doesn't fit, and why satire in particular has been targeted. We'll also take a qualitative look at how many romance tropes are fundamentally incompatible with satire. Finally, we'll explore whether intentionally miscategorising books is an effective strategy in achieving bestsellerdom. And... could it backfire? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: ⁠Most competitive categories on Kindle⁠ ⁠Least competitive categories on Kindle⁠ Sarah's books on Amazon

In this 20th episode of Letters and Numbers, we'll continue our discussion about trigger warnings, asking what healthier, more nuanced ways there are for writers, publishers, booksellers, and online communities to guide readers. We'll also take a look at what makes the treatment of contentious topics satirical... versus just plain mean! *Make sure you've listened to episode 19 and read Number Eight Crispy Chicken first! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Please leave a review of ⁠Number Eight Crispy Chicken⁠ Robert Cialdini's ⁠Presuasion⁠ Listen to the ⁠most popular episode of Letters & Numbers⁠ (and don't forget to share!)

In this episode of Letters and Numbers, we’re starting a new topic: writing and genre. The actual meat of what you’ll find inside a book. And we're going to begin with something you’re increasingly likely to find when you open a book: a trigger warning. Don’t worry, this podcast episode itself requires no trigger warning. Instead, we'll take a look at trigger warnings from an evidence-based perspective, and open up a discussion about how we can or should use them as readers and writers. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Brittney the Book Guru's analysis of the word 'trigger' If Books Could Kill's The Coddling of the American Mind episode Your homework for this week: Read Number Eight Crispy Chicken

In this episode of Letters and Numbers, we tackle the all-important question of plot: specifically, how important is plotting? This is the second installment of our double-episode on writing guides, and the final episode in our mini-series on writers and writing, before we dive into the murky waters of genre. The question of plotting vs. 'pantsing' is the subject of a long debate among writers. In this ambitious episode, we'll settle that question once and for all (!) Don't know what 'pantsing' even is? Come find out! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Andrew Goodall's article on photo editing Sarah's blog Wired Birds (with links to Lisa Cron's resources) Leave a review for (or grab a copy of!) Sarah's novel Propaganda Wars

One of the joys connected to reading and writing is reading books about the craft of writing. Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird in many ways represent two opposite ends of the spectrum of writing guides. In this episode of Letters and Numbers, we'll discuss the differences between a writing bible and a writing Bible with a capital B, and what we can learn from these two influential guides. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Watch the Bird by Bird with Annie trailer Lisa Cron's 9 Tips for Writing a Really Good "Shitty First Draft" Sarah's blog Wired Birds

Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us took the book world by storm. In this deep-dive episode of Letters and Numbers, we ask, if It Ends with Us... where did it all start? No, we're not discussing prequels or sequels to this runaway bestseller. We're running the microscope over Hoover's career, and taking a look at how an indie author can hit the New York Times bestseller list - as a debut author, nonetheless - by the numbers. Most importantly, we'll quantify how long it really takes to become an 'overnight success'. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Man Carrying Thing's review of It Ends With Us Man Carrying Thing's review of It Starts With Us Share your favourite books with Sarah on social media: fb, twitter, pin, insta

In this fifteenth episode of Letters and Numbers, we crunch the numbers and work out what it takes to become a seriously bestselling author. Not what it takes to write a bestselling book - what it takes to become a bestselling author. Yes, there's a difference! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: See the Fifty Shades of Grey book fort Links to all statistics in this episode are available on Sarah's blog Help Sarah become a moderately-selling author!

Who is 'Brown' enough to write a novel? 'Female' enough? 'Gay' enough? Do these questions even matter? In this episode of Letters and Numbers, we ask what an author's identity and politics have to do with their writing, how the numbers stack up regarding representations of the US and Mexico in American Dirt, and how we, as readers, can expand our horizons. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Latinx and Own Voices novels to read instead/in addition to American Dirt: USA Today, Texas Observer, The Guardian, The Young Folks Links to all statistics in this episode are available on Sarah's blog Read Sarah's novel dealing with immigration, international borders, and human rights

If you primarily read novels written in English, have you ever wondered how writers decide which English to use? What does 'which' English even mean? Find out in this week's episode of Letters and Numbers! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The BBC on The Death of Languages TV Quotas in The Conversation Read a book in Australian English!

"Anonymous was a woman" wrote Virginia Woolf. And indeed, many authors who wrote anonymously, or under pen names, have been. But there are many reasons to write under a name other than that bestowed upon you by your parents - and in this week's episode, the second in our mini-series on authors, we'll crunch the numbers and break down those collections of letters most closely reflecting our identity - our names. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Follow Sarah on Instagram Bias, She Wrote by Rosie Cima You Stole My Heart... Do I have to take your name?

This week, we begin our mini-series on authors. But it's a mini-series with a twist: we're not going to talk about the big name authors, but the little name authors, what I call "with" authors. Those authors who write "with" the big names. Do readers even notice these writers' names? And does writing with a Clive Cussler or a James Patterson make a notable difference to writers' careers? Listen as we crunch the numbers! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: One little word: With Discoverability series Sarah's books on Amazon

In the last episode of Letters & Numbers,  we asked what’s going on with book prices. In this week’s episode we’re looking at ebookonomics, to answer the question what’s going on with electronic books specifically - and why often, they're more expensive than print copies. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Guardian article on Amazon & Big Five price fixing Richard Stallman on the dangers of ebooks Buy Sarah's DRM-free books on Smashwords

Continuing our deep-dive into book pricing, this week we ask what -if anything - production costs have to do with it. Welcome, to the nonsensical world of Amazon book pricing! Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Sarah's posts on cover design Propaganda Wars AutoCEO

Over the first few episodes of this podcast, we took a look at how the publishing industry is dominated by five big publishers. Over the next few episodes, we looked at how it is dominated by one big platform – Amazon. And now, over the last few episodes in this mini series – before we move on to a focus on authors – we’ll take a deep-dive into the pricing of books. This week, we're asking why books don't cost the same worldwide... and I'd love to hear your views. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The CHOICE government submission Sarah's books on Amazon Sarah's books on Smashwords

In the previous episode of Letters & Numbers, I answered the question of whether indie authors are truly independent if they're getting 80-100% of their sales from a single platform, with a big 'NO'. In this episode, we look at the independence of readers, specifically, whether we actually own the books we read. You may already be aware of some of the ways that publishers and platforms are using technology to restrict the rights of readers - but did you know that before ebooks took off, publishers and big-name authors were using the courts to achieve the same thing? Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Richard Stallman on eBooks The Indie Reader Manifesto Sarah's novels on Smashwords

This episode of Numbers & Letters is the biggest yet! Rather than our regular 15 min broadcast, today's is a double feature, to answer a simply enormous question, are indie authors truly independent? In this episode, number six, you'll discover where indies make most of their sales, the similarities between publishing and investing, why free books hardly ever get read, and why Amazon isn't a monopoly (and what it actually is instead). This bumper episode is best accompanied by the blog post on which it was based, where you'll find diagrams representing healthy, monopolistic, monopsonistic, and monomesazonic book markets. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Mark Coker's Publishing Predictions The Indie Author Manifesto Sarah's novels on Smashwords

We're halfway through our mini-series on publishers in this first season of Letters & Numbers, focusing on books. We've talked mostly about the big publishers - so today, I want to tell you a story about independent and small publishers. It's a story about numbers - specifically, ISBNs.  Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an   exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: List of worldwide ISBN providers Graph of ISBN prices on Sarah's blog Sarah's novel Number Eight Crispy Chicken

Over the first three episodes of Letters & Numbers, we've seen how the publishing industry is dominated by the Big Five publishers, and what this means for readers and writers. In this episode, we dig beneath the outward appearance of 'diversity' in publishing - both in content and perspective - and take a look at what is really going on, by taking an uncommonly numerical approach. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: The Long Tail on Sarah's blog Oxfam's Fifty Shades of Grey book fort Sarah's novel Number Eight Crispy Chicken

Last episode, we looked at one how one of the Big Five publishers introduced in episode one took legal action against a group of literary archivists - and prevented one of its own smaller imprints from publishing DRM-free books. In episode three, we take a look at another legal case and ask our most controversial question yet: why another of the Big Five handed over more than a quarter of a million dollars to a 'writer' who didn't even write his own book, in a deal which resulted in enormous backlash, costing the publisher another author, and important review opportunities for their other writers. Want to know why garbage gets published? Follow the numbers. Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers! Links from this episode: Bad Feminist and Hunger by Roxanne Gay Charles Dance reading on The Big Fat Quiz Sarah's novel AutoCEO