Key to hit books discovered, study claims

Academic Yejin Choi says her algorithm can predict 'highly successful literature' with 84% accuracyAuthors, publishers and literary critics struggling to unlock the secrets of successful writing can breathe a sigh of relief, after a computer science professor has announced an algorithm that can tell the difference between a dud and a literary hit.After analysing 800 novels available to download at Project Gutenberg Yejin Choi, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University, claims she can predict literary "success" with 84% accuracy.Choi and her co-authors Vikas Ashok and Song Feng included a wide selection of genres in the study, with titles including fiction, adventures, mysteries, historical fiction, short stories and poetry. The researchers analysed the literary style of the first 1,000 sentences of each book, mapping a measure of "success" on to the number of downloads each title had received. This enabled them to identify "the stylistic elements that are more prominent in successful writings", giving an algorithm that can correctly distinguish "highly successful literature from its less successful counterpart" in up to 84% of cases.Less successful books, they found, contained a higher percentage of verbs, adverbs, and foreign words. "They also rely more on topical words that could be almost cliché," found the academics, "and extreme ('breathless') and negative ('bruised') words."Less successful books also "rely on verbs that are explicitly descriptive of actions... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Grace Dent to Leave Twitter for Faber/Guardian Books

Publication Date: Wed, 09/03/2011 - 14:40 Faber and Guardian Books have acquired a title by columnist and author Grace Dent about social networking phenomenon Twitter. Guardian Books publisher Lisa Darnell and Faber publishing director for non-fiction Julian Loose jointly acquired world rights... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Club Associates sold to Webb Group

Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Tue, 08/03/2011 - 16:00 Online bookseller Book Club Associates (BCA) has been sold to a retail home entertainment supplier. The Webb Group, which supplies retail home entertainment products including games, DVDs, music and gifts, announced the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sainsbury's launches own-brand kids' books

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 07/03/2011 - 09:00 Sainsbury's has launched a range of own brand pre-school children's books, publishing eight titles in collaboration with Dorling Kindersley. The titles went on sale on Saturday [5th March] in more than 200 of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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CAMEX 2011: Moving Beyond the Book

College stores may have taken the word "book" out of their name, but they still have a lot in common with their independent bookstore brethren. At this year's 88th annual meeting of the National Association of College Stores and Campus Market Expo many concerns shared with ABA stores, such as... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-03-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins Wants Libraries to Pay (and Pay...and Pay...) for e-Books

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[ PC World | 2011-03-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hearst's John Loughlin Highlights Four Key Drivers for Magazines at DMA Circ Marketing Day

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[ Folio Magazine | 2011-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BBS to begin online auction of non-book stock

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Random House US to bring 17K books to iBookstore

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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EU Raids Digital Book Sellers in Cartel Investigation

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[ PC World | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Random House E-book Change May Pave Way to IBookstore

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[ PC World | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dulwich Books invests in 'modern' redesign

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Media Decoder: Random House Adopts New Model for Selling E-Books

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[ The New York Times | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The New York Times | 2011-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Anova takes home Harry Hill knitting book

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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