Autor: Anna Palm

Foto: sirtravelalot/Shutterstock.com

Bestseller-Code

Foto: sirtravelalot/Shutterstock.com Matthew Jockers, Englischprofessor der University of Nebraska, hat gemeinsam mit Lektorin Jodie Archer das Rätsel um den Bestseller gelüftet. Mithilfe eines Algorithmus zerlegen sie Inhalte von Büchern in über 2800 Einzelteile – das nennt sich Text Mining. In ihrem Buch “The Bestseller Code“ erklären die beiden, welche Merkmale ein Buch haben muss, um zu einem Bestseller zu werden. Wir haben mit Matthew Jockers gesprochen. Von Anna Palm und Jil Frangenberg What is your favorite book? Is it a bestseller? Matthew Jockers: I’ll tell you what the last book is I read. “Melmoth the Wanderer” by Charles Robert Maturin, it is an old 19th century novel, so early Gothic. It is not a bestseller, it is a classic. But your algorithm measures the bestseller-potential, right? That’s correct and if I were to test it on the book that I’m reading right now, it would score very badly. That is because the bestseller-ometer identifies books that are likely to be bestsellers in today’s markets – measured by examples on the New York Times Bestseller List. “Melmoth …