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Originally Posted by pwalker8
The fallacy of saying that just because some author (who wasn't Scalzi btw) says it's not accurate for him doesn't mean that it's all wrong, is that the bottom line is there is no way to validate Author Earnings because very few authors and no publishers release that data. All the hand waving and detailed explanations of methodology doesn't change that. It doesn't matter what your methodology is if you don't have good data, and Author Earnings doesn't have accurate data since accurate data isn't available. The fact that a particular book is 253rd on the Amazon SF/Space Opera list doesn't really imply anything other than it sold more at Amazon than the 254th book and less than the 252nd book.
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The data was not of course either 100% complete or accurate, nor was it claimed to be.
It was simply the best available. The data was scraped from Amazon and other sources. It was sufficiently complete and accurate to be useful and far more than a mere guess. Citing a couple of statistically insignificant instances is not sufficient to relegate it to this status, no matter how little you may like its conclusions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
The idea that it's gone commercial implies that it's accurate is a fallacy. The fact that it's gone commercial doesn't imply anything other than they think they can get someone to buy their product. It's not surprising. Nature abhors a vacuum and all sorts of people in the industry (authors, reporters, etc) are looking for some data, any data that people are going to buy it. We see that here.
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What I said is that you can draw an inference from the fact that it has gone commercial and major industry players are buying it. It proves nothing except that it is safe to presume that those buying it see some value in it where you regard it as being a guess with little or no value. Perhaps some of these buyers are more qualified to judge its value than I? Or even you! It is not safe to infer from this that the data is 100% accurate. It is safe to infer that people paying for it regard it as more than a mere guess.
In any event I suppose our disagreement on this is pretty pointless now given the current situation.