The DNA of a Successful Book

While your students may not be writing bestsellers anytime soon, this may still interest some of your more literary students. HipType compile this data on the content, genre, and readers of books, and may just have created a formula (or at least a starting point), for a successful book. Of course in my opinion the […]

While your students may not be writing bestsellers anytime soon, this may still interest some of your more literary students. HipType compile this data on the content, genre, and readers of books, and may just have created a formula (or at least a starting point), for a successful book. Of course in my opinion the best books are the classics written by those who loved writing and who didn’t set out to write a bestseller, but to each his own.

According to this infographic, the average bestseller is 375 pages, with a female protagonist. The genre is literature and cost $3.99. An average of 30% of people will stop reading a book by page 50, so it is important to snag them by this point, and those over the age of 40 are more likely to read the longer books and spend more time reading in a single session.

What do your students think about this information? What has changed in recent decades to make shorter books more prominent among recent generations (possibly video games). What can writers do to make sure someone sticks with a book beyond page 50? What makes your students stick with a book beyond page 50? Would your students be more likely to read more with an ereader? Or do they like holding a book in their hands?

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