I'm not sure how I managed to extract this extraordinarily dubious little factoid I plan on revealing today, seeing as I discovered it in For Boys Only The Biggest Baddest Book Ever. Upon discovering that I'd checked it out of the library and was thumbing through it, my little one insisted on smacking it shut with the defense that I'm not even allowed to look at it, seeing as I'm not a boy.
So...being me, I make sure he catches me with my nose in it every chance I get.
Anyway, I was poking through it when I discovered the 'Odds Are' page. It gives the probabilities for all sorts of things a boy might be interested in: Odds of dying from a dog bite (1 in 700,000), lightning strike (1 in 2,320,000), or shark attack (1 in 300,000,000). In fact, it seems one has a better chance of becoming a saint (1 in 20,000,000) than in dying from a shark attack. Woo-hoo!
My favorite though is 'Odds of writing a New York Times best-selling book': 1 in 220.
1 in 220?? It seems like the odds of writing a NYT best-seller are waaay better than the odds of actually getting your book published. In fact, according to one survey of the publishing industry (according to Rick Riordan), only 3 manuscripts out of 10,000 are actually published. Those numbers don't jibe, and I tend to believe the latter. But why not be optimistic? Maybe I'm closer to a NYT best-seller than I thought.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
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6 comments:
Whoa on the saint/shark thing. Geeze!
Not sure about those statistics. Maybe it's odds out of the number of books that are actually published, not out of the number of those aspiring to be published? I have no clue. This isn't my strong point. Off to go dream about the the NYT Best Seller list! :)
I don't think those odds are right but I wish they were.
Oh, to be on the NYT list! How cool is that? Although, I'll go with Steph in thinking those odds are for already published books. But still, nice to think about!
So why is this book for boys only?
Wish those odds were true for the NYT Best Seller List!
People who meditate regularly know that if you want something you should think about already having it, and then your will get it. That should improve one's odds in getting onto the NYT Best Seller list.
I love that stat but struggle to get published!!!
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