Writing
 
Thought for the Writer's Day: Free
Audiobooks
I'm taking a day off from the audiobook project. Maybe
it'll help!
About this time last year I wrote a piece asking how
many online novels are out there. How many online novels
would you actually want to read? My tongue was in my
cheek a bit, but the question is significant and my
answer wasn't entirely frivolous. Here's what I said:
Strangely enough, the work of a scientist called Frank
Drake can help us to find out. Drake once pondered the
question of how many alien races we might be able to
contact in our galaxy. His response was the Drake Equation,
which is very simple. All you need to do is estimate
seven numbers and multiply them together.
You can safely skip this paragraph if you want to,
but... the first number is the rate of star formation
in our galaxy, the second is the fraction of those stars
which have planets, the third is the average number
of planets which can potentially support life for each
star that has planets, the fourth is the fraction which
actually go on to develop life, the fifth is the fraction
which actually go on to develop intelligent life, the
sixth is the fraction which are willing and able to
communicate, and the last is the expected lifetime of
such a civilization.
Such an equation is guaranteed to be accurate. For
any numbers that you plug in, it will tell you how exactly
how populous the universe is. If you play around with
the equation, you'll quickly discover that it's very
easy to believe that many thousands of sophisticated
civilizations probably exist, or that we're almost certainly
alone. That's what makes The Drake Equation so popular,
I suppose; it proves everyone's point at once.
It occurs me that a similar approach might be used
to estimate how many good online novels are out there,
in the English language. I'm going to call it the Madison
Equation.
But what would the seven variables be?
The first one, which I'll call N, is the fraction of
all writers who choose to write a novel. Remember that
not all writers want to write fiction.
The next is E, is the number of people who have English
as their first language. They'd live mostly in the United
Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, with some in Africa, some in India, perhaps,
and maybe some in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.
Next we have W, the fraction of people who actually
sit down and write in the first place. I think a lot
of people want to write, but the number of people who
actually go ahead and do it is definitely smaller.
Of course, the fraction of novel writers who get as
far as "The End" is important to consider,
and we'll call that F, for "finishers."
Next we have the fraction of people capable of publishing
online. We'll call it L, for "computer literate."
Remember that a great many writers cannot run a website,
and cannot even run a blog. I think it would be a big
mistake to believe that everyone is good with computers.
They're not. Some don't even have computers.
We need to take into account the fraction of people
who then choose to publish online, which we'll term
O. I know good writers who certainly don't put their
work online, for all sorts of reasons.
What about the seventh variable? That's easy. How many
completed books are worth reading? How many finished
amateur books are readable? We'll call it R.
So, here's the Madison Equation:
B = N * E * W * F * L * O * R
where B is the number of readable books out there.
Let's give it a try. Remember that the equation is designed
to provoke debate, so if you disagree with this next
part, that's fine.
I'd say N is about one third. Of all the writers out
there, one third of them might choose a novel as their
favorite form, ahead of plays, magazine articles, non-fiction,
memoir, and so on.
E is probably about half a billion people. We need
to look this one up, but I bet I'm in the right ballpark.
W is perhaps a hundredth. I doubt that more than one
in a hundred people sit down and write.
Of the people who do sit down and try to write a novel,
I'd say that one in ten get to the end. It took me about
six attempts to finish a book, and I was pretty darn
determined. So, in my mind, F is one tenth.
L, for this test, is one fifth. I'd say one in five
writers could run a blog, although I suspect this is
a bit of an overestimate. A lot of people over the age
of 50 write, and most people over 50 don't blog.
O is probably smaller than you'd imagine. I think a
lot of writers would sooner die than publish online.
I'm going to set O at one tenth.
Finally we come to the tricky question of how many
online novels are readable. I've looked at hundreds,
and I've never found myself moved to read more than
the first 3,000 words, and then only with considerable
determination. For the sake of argument, I'm going to
set R at one hundredth.
Now, I promised this isn't preplanned. I've tried my
best to pick numbers that make sense, and I have never
run the Madison Equation until this very moment. Let's
plug our seven numbers in and calculate B, the number
of online novels in English that are worth reading.
This is the world premier of the Madison Equation, live,
online.
B = 0.33 * 500,000,000 * 0.01 * 0.1 * 0.2 * 0.1 *
0.01
Grabbing a calculator, I find that:
B = 33
If my guesses are correct, the entire internet is home
to just 33 online novels that you might consider to
be worth reading.
Wow. There's an opportunity here.
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