In Case you Were Wondering …
In Case you Were Wondering …
We recently updated our FAQs to focus on our writing style analysis technology branded ScoreIt!™. Here are the answers to the questions you’ve been asking.
Who We Are
Inkubate is a technology company that offers a range of powerful analytic tools related to “fingerprinting” and comparing the writing style of authors.
Our principal technology, branded ScoreIt!™, was used to “out” J.K. Rowling as the ghost author Robert Galbraith. After her repeated denials and faced with the technology’s analysis of her writing style, Rowling admitted that she was in fact the author of “A Cuckoo’s Calling.”
The very same technology that matched Galbraith to Rowling is helping independent and aspiring writers discover who they write like so that they can pitch their books to the readers of their matching authors.
ScoreIt!™ allows writers to zero in on the keywords and phrases that engage and attract their matched authors’ audiences. Writers who enhance their marketing efforts with these keywords and phrases have reported up to double-digit increases in the number of ad impressions and click-throughs associated with their digital marketing efforts.
With ScoreIt!™, writers now have a technological “assistant” to help them find their matching authors and titles. Indie writer S.E. (Susan) Smith used to hire book readers to find authors who craft content similar to her own. Smith’s strategy has long been to then pitch her work to the consumers of these matched authors, but Smith concedes that this approach has required enormous reserves of time, energy and money. Now Smith only needs to upload her latest title to the ScoreIt!™ platform to instantly receive her writing style matches and quickly connect to the data that guides her in connecting with the readers of authors matched by science.
The Technology
How was the technology designed?
Hundreds of thousands of algorithms, each representing an element of writing style, are processed in real time using artificial intelligence that creates a “style fingerprint” for each writer’s manuscript. Using rigorous statistical analysis, these writing style fingerprints are compared to one another to identify significant similarities.
How did Inkubate develop the technology?
In collaboration with the world’s leading expert on natural language processing and forensic linguistics and his team of data scientists at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
How do we know the technology works?
Research has proved that the approach of looking at the particular writing style attributes of a writer can be used to make detailed and accurate comparisons between authors. In fact, the technology was used to “out” J.K. Rowling as the ghost author Robert Galbraith. After her repeated denials and faced with the technology’s analysis of her writing style, Rowling admitted that she was in fact the author of “A Cuckoo’s Calling.”
How much content do you need to accurately analyze and evaluate a writer’s fingerprint?
To get 90 percent and above efficacy, we only need 150 words sampled from a free writing exercise. Our science performs at its best though when we’re able to provide 98-99 percent efficacy against a statistical analysis. And to do that, anything from a single chapter to a full manuscript simply pushes the accuracy higher.
Who do you compare your writing style fingerprints against?
The database of ScoreIt!™ is comprised of 25 percent of all the bestselling authors, as reported by Nielsen from the last 7 years. Databases can be custom-built to serve the goals and aims of a wide range of customers.
Why do you use bestselling authors?
Because ScoreIt!™ was designed to help writers model their book marketing efforts against those of successful authors. The bestselling authors chosen for ScoreIt!™’s database were carefully researched using data from Nielsen book scan, where a wide range of author success stories can be identified. For example, it is possible that authors make a bestseller list for only one week and only sell a few-dozen to a few hundred books because the bestseller list is so deep and is calculated weekly. It’s a broad cross-section to provide the best writing style matches.
Customer/Market Segments
Who are our current customers?
ScoreIt!™ customers are primarily self-published writers, but Inkubate has solutions for all segments of the publishing industry, including self-publishing services and platform providers, libraries, agents and traditional publishing houses.
What does it cost for writers?
Writers pay as little as 49.95 for a single use of ScoreIt!™.
What are the segments of the market for which the technology applicable?
ScoreIt!™ is a tool for self-published writers, but Inkubate has solutions using the same core technology for other players within the publishing ecosystem. They include search engine solutions, slush pile filtering, plagiarism and fake news identification.
Why do customers buy ScoreIt!™?
ScoreIt!™ is the only technology in existence that objectively automates the process of writing style analysis, tells a writer who they write like and links them to valuable data concerning their matched authors.
Why do writers care about who they write like?
A writer’s ScoreIt!™ report allows them to zero in on the keywords and phrases that engage and attract their matched authors’ audiences. Writers who enhance their marketing efforts with these keywords and phrases have reported up to double-digit increases in the number of impressions and click-throughs associated with their digital marketing efforts.
What is ScoreIt!™’s application to fiction and non-fiction?
Currently the focus of Scoreit!™ is on fiction because that’s the largest segment of the marketplace, but the technology works for all writing.
What are the languages that the technology supports?
The tool currently deployed supports English, but Inkubate can port the solutions to other romance languages.
Technologies Like ScoreIt!™
Are there any competitors?
No. ScoreIt!™ is unique and Inkubate holds the worldwide rights to this patented technology.
Is this technology similar to other pairing/matching engines?
There is ample research that indicates that people are attracted to styles of music that can often be quite divergent and that has to do with how an individual composer composes their music, not necessarily the music genre. So ScoreIt!™’s approach is somewhat analogous to these music platforms because people read writers who appeal to them largely on the basis of style. And while ScoreIt!™, as its currently deployed for writers, is not a recommendation engine, it serves writers well by taking a very deep dive into the hundreds of thousands of features of writing style that create their writer fingerprint. The ability of a writer to compare their writing style to other writers is part of what makes ScoreIt!™ such a powerful marketing tool. Building on this very same “fingerprinting science,” Inkubate is also offering a book recommendation tool for book retailers, libraries and educational institutions.
To learn more about ScoreIt!™, please contact Inkubate CEO Don Seitz at don@inkubate.com. If you’re a writer who has used ScoreIt!™ and have a question on how to apply your results to your book marketing campaign, contact our President & Technological Lead Jay Gale jdgale@inkubate.com or Co-Founder and Marketing Lead Stacy Clark stacy@inkubate.com.
Our Twitter handle is /InkubateDotCom
Our Facebook page is /Inkubate
Leave a Reply