Humor for Writers – Toto the Writer and Statistics

Toto the writer is speaking with his friend Jack Black from the Census bureau to try and find out what are his chances of making it big as a self-publisher.

Toto: Tell me Jack, is there any way I can find out what are the odds I will ever make a living from my pen as a self-published writer?

Jack: Sure, it is just a matter of gathering the numbers and averaging them.

Toto: What do you mean?

Jack: Well, let say for example you want to find out what is the proportion of boys and girls who go to college. You take the total number of students, separate them by gender and find out what proportion of high schoolboys go to college compared to the proportion of high school girl that do the same.

Toto: But I am not interested in knowing what proportion of men and woman make money from self-publishing, just what are the chances I will.

Jack: So, do not separate by gender, then, it’s easy.

Toto: OK, so where do I find the numbers for self-published writers?

Jack: That’s a tricky one. If you want to understand statistics, I would start with data that you can easily find around.

Toto: I got one, but the result makes no sense…

Jack: What result?

Toto: Well, if I take all men and women and do not separate them by gender, on average, we all have one breast and one testicle…