Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a logic fallacy. The Latin is translated as, “After this, therefore because of this.” The easiest example demonstrating the fallacy is, “The sun came up after the rooster crowed, therefore the sun came up because the rooster crowed.” Conflating coincidence with causality can result in unsupportable and erroneous conclusions. We often see a similar expression of the fallacy in politics. “Crime rates came down because we passed legislation increasing the money allocated to hiring law enforcement officers.” It may be that the two events are inversely correlated. However, the political impulse to take credit for some positive trend overlooks, probably intentionally, the tenuous connection between one event and the other as well as effects of other variables. Neither coincidence nor correlation is causation although they are often proffered as one and the same.
As noted, probably too many times at this point, my book Greg Scarpa, Legendary Evil was selected on November 15th as a finalist in the 2025 Independent Author Network‘s Book of the Year Awards. Along with notification of the award, IAN sent a list of suggested marketing activities to promote the book’s award. I took several of the steps they suggested immediately as did my publisher. Two days ago I received a report stating that sales of physical copies of the book increased 67% in the week after the award when compared with sales during the previous week. Sales are still modest, but such an increase at least raises the question about the effect of the award, and more specifically the effect of promoting the book as “award-winning.”
It’s too early to tell if the increase is a portent of things to come or merely an insignificant blip. And it’s also impossible to know at this point what is responsible for the momentary increase. It is a logical fallacy to conclude that the increase happened because of the award and its marketing. However, as the rooster who takes credit for the sunrise or the politician who takes credit for a falling crime rate, I like to think one has something to do with the other. At this point I’ll just have to wait and see what a larger data set might suggest.
