Does Size Matter?: Lydia Davis wins Man Booker Prize

I recently wrote a post called Does Size Matter, which reflected on whether or not readers measure a book's value by it's size.   A recent Smashwords survey  asserts that readers tend to prefer longer books. So I was interested to read the following:

"Lydia Davis, the shortest of all short story writers, whose works can be as brief as a single sentence, has won the fifth Man Booker International Prize."  Check out the links below for the full report.  I was intrigued enough to download her short story collection to find out more, as I have always been fascinated by short forms in which every single word has to account for itself. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/worlds-most-concise-short-story-writer-lydia-davis-wins-booker-international-prize-2013-8627388.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/entertainment-us-books-manbooker-lydiada-idUSBRE94L16020130522

If, like me, you enjoy the challenge of flash fiction, you might want to have a go at this competition to write a story in 100 words.  I'm about to send off my entry now.   Good luck!

http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/reading_and_literacy/100_words_competition.aspx

PS - closing date May 31st!

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/reading-bigger-books.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/readers-does-size-matter.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-business-of-writing-part-2-elusive.html

The Business of Writing Part 2: The Elusive Magic Formula?

Is there a magic formula for selling books?  We all hope so, and many articles and how to books might claim there is.  But, deep down, we know it isn't true.

Publishing is full of surprises - what sells, what doesn't - and despite following certain "rules" that make perfect sense, as writers, we are at the mercy of a reader's personal tastes.  There is no magic formula – either for writing or promoting books - that will work for everyone.

However, statistics can at least inform our marketing decisions.

I'm grateful to fellow writer and blogger Deborah Jay http://deborahjay.wordpress.com/about/ for responding to one of my recent posts called Readers: Does size matter? by sending me the link to the results of a recent Smashwords survey which analysed the common characteristics of bestselling (and poor-selling) Smashwords ebooks.  Some of the questions they posed were:

• Do frequent price changes help authors sell more books?
• Do longer or shorter books sell better?
• What's the average word count for the 60 bestselling Smashwords romance books?
• What does the sales distribution curve look like, and how many books sell well?
• How many words are the bestselling authors selling for a penny?

These are all questions I've recently been wrestling with and blogging about and after reading this, I have had a major overhaul of my e-book pricing structure, curious to see how this might affect sales.

Click on the link to read the full list of questions and survey findings.
http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/05/new-smashwords-survey-helps-authors.html

Related posts
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-business-of-writing-part-1.html
http://janefriedman.com/2013/04/21/how-to-publish-an-ebook/