Having found a mathematical formula that tells me how I feel about my book, I thought it only fair that I undertake a similar investigation into how America as a whole feels.
As mentioned in my previous post, our publisher has sold 10,269 copies of The Government Manual for New Superheroes. Since the cover price is $10.95(**), America has now spent a total of $112,445.55 on our book.
By the irrefutable laws of the free-market economy, this makes The Government Manual more valuable than a well-cut 3.01 karat diamond, which would sell for a mere $112,079–and then only if the color and clarity were up to snuff. Yes, America could have had the diamond, but it chose our book instead. That’s a great honor, and it’s one we’ll do our best to live up to.
Here are some other things America thinks our book is worth more than:
• The right to send out pornographic spam
• a 5-rai parcel of land in Thailand near Chiang Rai’s best little park and not far from Rajabat college. (5 rai is a little less than 2 acres, in case you’re wondering.)
• 5 1/2 of the most expensive Olympic pins ever created.
(**) Of course, many people presumably bought the book via Amazon or another source that sells the book at a discount, which means the figure of $112,445.55 overestimates the money spent. On the other hand, other people have presumably paid for used copies, which means that the figure underestimates our total sales. For now, I’m assuming that those two factors roughly cancel each other out. If I discover differently, I’ll let you know.