Can a computer program help you produce a better book?
I logged on to my paperback printer, Lulu, the other day to find a new button next to each of my titles, labelled ‘Buy a Helix review’. Thinking that this must be a variation on the notorious paid reviews, I clicked to find out how much money my printer wanted to not read my books and still give them five stars. However, it turns out that a Helix review is something different. It’s a computer program which reads your book and gives you a report, so that you can compare your book against “more than 100,000 bestsellers catalogued as part of The Book Genome Project.”
My curiosity and confusion increased in equal measure, mainly thanks to the marketing guff Lulu offered to explain this. According to the site, a Helix report contains metrics about your book under five headings: Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Can Helix Reviews Help You Produce a Better Book?”