Numbers…

Writers often worry about them: how many words did I write today? How many books did I sell this month? How many reviews have my books received? Even, how many “likes” or retweets did I get on Twitter?

Science is all about numbers, and business now emphasizes them too. In a sense, econ 101 for publishing doesn’t differ from econ 101 in general. Metrics! Everything is about metrics these days.

I contend that this focus on numbers is antithetical to good writing. We writers shouldn’t worry abou...