A couple of things jumped out at me from this week’s reading.

The first was how powerful the internet can really be, in this instance, in creating an overwhelming amount of success for a decade old book. Amazon recommendations was programmed to notice patterns in buyer’s behaviours and determined that people purchasing the successful novel ‘Into Thin Air’ would like ‘Touching the Void’. So heaps of people started buying it, enjoying it, and writing rave reviews, triggering a chain reaction. A moderately successful book from 10 years ago suddenly spent 14 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. I hope author Joe Simpson is sending Amazon a Christmas card each year.

Also I was very interested to know that an average film needs 1500 people to see it in the first two weeks to make it worth screening but a record store only needs to sell two copies of a CD a YEAR to make that CD worth carrying – that’s the rent for half an inch of shelf space.