New Biography Selection Criteria
April 22nd, 2010My library's ever-shrinking book budget has made me be more discerning when it comes to selection. However, one area that is always difficult for me is biographies.
It seems like every troubled athlete, aging celebrity, recovering musician, reality television personality, unfaithful politician (and their wives), have all signed book deals. I don't pay much attention to pop culture personalities, so it's hard for me to tell if the person is someone significant.
So I was joking with a coworker about a new selection criteria for all of these celebrity memoirs. Since the importance of many of these people is based on social zeitgeist, I thought I could use Google to help me decide. I figure that if a person is important, a Google search for that person's name should return at least one million webpages. If they're above that (arbitrary) threshold, I'll buy their biography - if not, then I'll check again when the paperback comes out.
Granted, not all my ideas are practical, but here's how some current biographies fare with this "hive mind" selection criteria:
- The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, by David Remnick (51,900,000 for "Barack Obama")
- Oprah: A Biography, by Kitty Kelley (21,900,000 for "Oprah")
- Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin, by Hampton Sides (12,300,000 for "Martin Luther King")
- Bowie: A Biography, by Marc Spitz (10,400,000 for "David Bowie")
- Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler (3,450,000 for "Chelsea Handler")
- The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, by Sarah Silverman (2,810,000 for "Sarah Silverman")
- Staying True, by Jenny Sanford (2,280,000 for "Jenny Sanford")
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned, by Michael J. Fox (1,430,000 for "Michael J. Fox")
- Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage, by Raquel Welch (1,250,000 for "Raquel Welch")
- This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection, by Carol Burnett (868,000 for "Carol Burnett")
- A Game of Character: A Family Journey from Chicago's Southside to the Ivy League and Beyond by Craig Robinson (504,000 for "Craig Robinson")
- When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man by Jerry Weintraub and Rich Cohen, (373,000 for "Jerry Weintraub")
- I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, by Nujood Ali (268,000 for "Nujood Ali")
- The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century, by Alan Brinkley (193,000 for "Henry Luce")
- Killing Willis: From Diff'rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted, by Todd Bridges and Sarah Tomlinson (141,000 for "Todd Bridges")
- Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds, by Robin Olds, Christina Olds, and Ed Rasimus (122,000 for "Robin Olds")
Obviously, not flawless, but this Google criteria might help tell me who I should pay attention to. And in addition to traditional reviews and ratings, another one of my tactics is to wait until requests for a book reach a certain number before ordering it, but that method only addresses demand after the fact, and leaves out the patrons who didn't think to request it.
Selection is a fine art, but when it comes to biographies, most my crayons are dull.
April 22nd, 2010 at 10:26 am
Interesting criteria… But some of these books when new are going to be quite high in the Google rankings, but give them a couple months and they will most likely fall in popularity… I would think you’d need to trend this for several months to a years to gauge the lasting popularity of the person in question.
Sadly, I would bet that The Way Things Ought to Be by Rush Limbaugh still ranks pretty high on The Google, even though the contents are probably not very relevant anymore. (If they ever were.)
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
@Chris: see, that’s the beauty of Google searches for peoples’ name – it sort of ranks how popular they are overall, not just the book.
It helps people who have been talked-about for awhile before a book was written about them, but it hurts people like Nujood Ali and Robin Olds, who might only be known because of their books. It would be interesting to track search returns over time, but I try to do that with Amazon sales rank too, and it’s a pain.
And yes, 4,280,000 for “Rush Limbaugh” means he’s almost twice as popular as Jenny Sanford.
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I figure biographies don’t usually have a very long shelf life. Of course I want ones with good reviews that are about historical figures that students need to know about, or people who like a meaty nonfiction book might be interested in. These bios generally have a long shelf life, though perhaps not high circulation stats. They will be useful for years.
However, I also want to try to satisfy kids who want to read about their favorite sports star or the woman who peruses “People” magazine and sees an interesting book there. This second category of biographies is the one that I figure will not last long. They’ll go out while they’re new and in the news but not much after that.
Yes, budgets are tight and we need to get the most out of our dollars, but your dilemma about buying biographies illustrates that fine line between giving patrons what they need and giving them what they want. In both cases, I have been more choosy about what I buy while hopefully satisfying most readers.
April 29th, 2010 at 3:05 am
That’s classic! i ahve to admit I ahve googled my name afew times 🙂 not that important in the eyes of google.
Have you read the four agreements?
November 12th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Brian – I think your strategy for celebrity memoirs is a good one.
December 3rd, 2010 at 1:31 am
You’ll go blind Googling yourself Dustin! LOL. selection criteria examples
February 6th, 2011 at 6:57 am
As a quantitative minded person, I like the thinking behind this approach. Lots of hits on google and you’re likely to be interesting to readers.
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