Deepening Consumer Insights Takes Priority for Book Publishers in 2015

Book Business interviewed several leaders in the publishing industry to discover what new trends will disrupt publishing in 2015. We featured those interviews in our December issue. Here we want to share the full interviews, which offer valuable insight on the future of the book business.

Following David Lipsey, partner at Optimity Advisors, shares his insights on the year to come in publishing.

What big trends do you think will disrupt the book industry in the future?
I think that there is continuing need and growing importance for book publishers to know more and more about who their customers are. The same way that the distribution channel has been so tremendously disrupted with Amazon and the myriad of ways that books are consumed so can the publishers disrupt the supply chain by getting to know better the individuals buying their books. Part two is learning how to use those insights and that data for title acquisition, marketing, or just sustaining relationships through time.

What tools exist for publishers to better track their customers?
There are certainly a lot of tools on the customer relationship management side. Data is available but many distributors are reluctant to share that data. I think publishers are a bit challenged because they have to work very hard to get that information. They have to build new channels, like author fan pages, to actually capture their readers.

Understanding that data and making smart bets based on it is a whole other set of tools. Part one is figuring out how to get the data and reliably track it. Part two is determining whose job it is in the organization to understand what's predictable from the data collected. What they learn from A/B testing and monitoring these results can affect title acquisition, advertising, and even negotiations with the distribution channels. It has a lot of potential purposes.