"Anonymous was a woman" wrote Virginia Woolf. And indeed, many authors who wrote anonymously, or under pen names, have been. But there are many reasons to write under a name other than that bestowed upon you by your parents - and in this week's episode, the second in our mini-series on authors, we'll crunch the numbers and break down those collections of letters most closely reflecting our identity - our names.

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

Follow Sarah on Instagram

Bias, She Wrote by Rosie Cima

You Stole My Heart... Do I have to take your name?

This week, we begin our mini-series on authors. But it's a mini-series with a twist: we're not going to talk about the big name authors, but the little name authors, what I call "with" authors. Those authors who write "with" the big names. Do readers even notice these writers' names? And does writing with a Clive Cussler or a James Patterson make a notable difference to writers' careers? Listen as we crunch the numbers!

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

One little word: With

Discoverability series

Sarah's books on Amazon

In the last episode of Letters & Numbers,  we asked what’s going on with book prices. In this week’s episode we’re looking at ebookonomics, to answer the question what’s going on with electronic books specifically - and why often, they're more expensive than print copies.

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

Guardian article on Amazon & Big Five price fixing

Richard Stallman on the dangers of ebooks

Buy Sarah's DRM-free books on Smashwords

Continuing our deep-dive into book pricing, this week we ask what -if anything - production costs have to do with it. Welcome, to the nonsensical world of Amazon book pricing!

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

Sarah's posts on cover design

Propaganda Wars

AutoCEO

Over the first few episodes of this podcast, we took a look at how the publishing industry is dominated by five big publishers. Over the next few episodes, we looked at how it is dominated by one big platform – Amazon. And now, over the last few episodes in this mini series – before we move on to a focus on authors – we’ll take a deep-dive into the pricing of books. This week, we're asking why books don't cost the same worldwide... and I'd love to hear your views.

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

The CHOICE government submission

Sarah's books on Amazon

Sarah's books on Smashwords

In the previous episode of Letters & Numbers, I answered the question of whether indie authors are truly independent if they're getting 80-100% of their sales from a single platform, with a big 'NO'. In this episode, we look at the independence of readers, specifically, whether we actually own the books we read. You may already be aware of some of the ways that publishers and platforms are using technology to restrict the rights of readers - but did you know that before ebooks took off, publishers and big-name authors were using the courts to achieve the same thing?

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

Richard Stallman on eBooks

The Indie Reader Manifesto

Sarah's novels on Smashwords

This episode of Numbers & Letters is the biggest yet! Rather than our regular 15 min broadcast, today's is a double feature, to answer a simply enormous question, are indie authors truly independent? In this episode, number six, you'll discover where indies make most of their sales, the similarities between publishing and investing, why free books hardly ever get read, and why Amazon isn't a monopoly (and what it actually is instead).

This bumper episode is best accompanied by the blog post on which it was based, where you'll find diagrams representing healthy, monopolistic, monopsonistic, and monomesazonic book markets.

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

Mark Coker's Publishing Predictions

The Indie Author Manifesto

Sarah's novels on Smashwords

We're halfway through our mini-series on publishers in this first season of Letters & Numbers, focusing on books. We've talked mostly about the big publishers - so today, I want to tell you a story about independent and small publishers. It's a story about numbers - specifically, ISBNs. 

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an   exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

List of worldwide ISBN providers

Graph of ISBN prices on Sarah's blog

Sarah's novel Number Eight Crispy Chicken

Over the first three episodes of Letters & Numbers, we've seen how the publishing industry is dominated by the Big Five publishers, and what this means for readers and writers. In this episode, we dig beneath the outward appearance of 'diversity' in publishing - both in content and perspective - and take a look at what is really going on, by taking an uncommonly numerical approach.

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an  exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

The Long Tail on Sarah's blog

Oxfam's Fifty Shades of Grey book fort

Sarah's novel Number Eight Crispy Chicken

Last episode, we looked at one how one of the Big Five publishers introduced in episode one took legal action against a group of literary archivists - and prevented one of its own smaller imprints from publishing DRM-free books. In episode three, we take a look at another legal case and ask our most controversial question yet: why another of the Big Five handed over more than a quarter of a million dollars to a 'writer' who didn't even write his own book, in a deal which resulted in enormous backlash, costing the publisher another author, and important review opportunities for their other writers. Want to know why garbage gets published? Follow the numbers.

Join author, linguist, and mathematician-in-the-making Sarah on an exploration of the world through the lens of letters and numbers!

Links from this episode:

Bad Feminist and Hunger by Roxanne Gay

Charles Dance reading on The Big Fat Quiz

Sarah's novel AutoCEO