Squawk Radio

I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of numbers to worry about. I stepped on the scale this morning--wish that number was lower. And my total word count for the book I'm working on--wish that number was higher. Then there are numbers like our monthly budget, and the number of school days left before the kids get out (nooooooo!!!!) and recently my husband informed me that we're no longer counting carbs, we have to start counting grams of trans fat. I don't know what that is, but I'm sure it's delicious.

And now it appears there's a new number for writers to be aware of . . . our Amazon Flesh-Kincaid readability score.

If you click on a book that's been published pretty recently, and scroll down to the "In This Book" section, you can find a little link called "text stats". It gives you all kinds of info including word count, words used most often, and . . . a readability score. I tried this for my last book "Secrets Of A Summer Night" and it has a score of 8.2. Is this good? Is this bad? Would any reader check my Flesch-Kincaid score before buying my book? Why is this number there, and what am I supposed to do with it?

I think I'll go eat some trans-fat.