Image by © Arthur Baensch/Corbis
And, no, that half-finished diary, er, memoir in your desk drawer doesn’t count.
Mashable reports that Google has determined that there are nearly 130 million books that were written during modern history. They arrived at this number while cataloging for Google Books, by working with International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), the Library of Congress and the database WorldCat and then using algorithms to filter out duplicates and government documents.
But exactly how does Google define a book? Google software engineer, Leonid Taycher, offers this stipulation in a description of the process:
“One definition of a book we find helpful inside Google when handling book metadata is a ‘tome,’ an idealized bound volume. A tome can have millions of copies (e.g. a particular edition of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown) or can exist in just one or two copies (such as an obscure master’s thesis languishing in a university library).”
So there you have it. If you were ever a graduate student (and completed your thesis), Google considers you an author. Though others may still consider you the worst person in the world. (via Mashable)