  In the unified scheme of active galactic nuclei, a dusty torus absorbs and
then reprocesses a fraction of the intrinsic luminosity which is emitted at
longer wavelengths. Thus, subject to radiative transfer corrections, the
fraction of the sky covered by the torus as seen from the central source (known
as the covering factor $f_c$) can be estimated from the ratio of the infrared
to the bolometric luminosities of the source as $f_c=L_{\rm torus}/L_{\rm
Bol}$. However, the uncertainty in determining $L_{\rm Bol}$ has made the
estimation of covering factors by this technique difficult, especially for AGN
in the local Universe where the peak of the observed SEDs lies in the UV
(ultraviolet). Here, we determine the covering factors of an X-ray/optically
selected sample of 51 type~1 AGN. The bolometric luminosities of these sources
are derived using a self-consistent, energy-conserving model that estimates the
contribution in the unobservable far-UV region, using multi-frequency data
obtained from SDSS, \textit{XMM-Newton}, \textit{WISE}, 2MASS and UKIDSS. We
derive a mean value of $f_c\sim$0.30 with a dispersion of 0.17. Sample
correlations, combined with simulations, show that $f_c$ is more strongly
anti-correlated with $\lambda_{\rm Edd}$ than with $L_{\rm Bol}$. This points
to large-scale torus geometry changes associated with the Eddington-dependent
accretion flow, rather than a receding torus, with its inner sublimation radius
determined solely by heating from the central source. Furthermore, we do not
see any significant change in the distribution of $f_c$ for sub-samples of
radio-loud sources or Narrow Line Seyfert~1 galaxies (NLS1s), though these
sub-samples are small.
