The Page 69 Test


I read about this blog site on one of my writer's lists (and we now know these are where I get most of my ideas for blog topics, don't we?). Apparently authors can check their own books (or the blogger checks some) and email the blog owner. She then posted to the list, with a link to the original News Bite blog site. I find the idea interesting and so went to my book shelf to see how my books would fare if someone started reading at page 69. Would I find that page representative of the story as a whole? I was pretty nervous as I started reading, but was pleasantly surprised to find that, in all seven books, page 69 delivered the goods. Okay, I have no idea how you could plan something like that in your writing, but it is an interesting idea. It's not like you can find page 69 in an unpublished manuscript. The author doesn't control where the pages fall in a printed book. So, is it good writing or pure, dimb luck when that page delivers the goods? When you pick up a book, is random sampling part of your assessment for buying? Or do you go to a particular page? Now that I've read the News Bite page 69 site, I might become this website page 69 reader. If I remember to do it. Right now, I'm still trying to memorize a new pin number for my debit card.

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