Data

Creative industries are often hesitant to embrace data-driven strategies, fearing that the numbers might supplant creativity. Online publishing platform Inkitt holds the opposite view and was founded on the conviction that data can discover the next bestseller. Inkitt describes itself as the first data-driven digital publisher. The platform has a built-in algorithm that analyzes reader…

Day two of the Digital Book World Conference opened with a focus on data, particularly data that examines industry-wide bookselling trends. Unfortunately, it’s clear that much of this data is largely incomplete and the conclusions publishers can pull from it are shaky at best. Michael Cader, creator of Publishers Launch, led a session that explored…

Barnes & Noble Education took a $12 million impairment charge in its third quarter to reflect the restructuring of its digital operations. As part of overhauling that part of its business, B&NE is closing its Yuzu digital educational platform and will replace it with a longterm agreement signed with Ingram’s VitalSource and the purchase of…

“Most data is directional,” said Kelly Gallagher, VP of Content Acquisition for Ingram Content Group, in one of the kick-off sessions at the 2016 Digital Book World Conference. What did he mean? Data isn’t always a replacement for the gut instincts an editor may have about a particular book, but when used correctly, data should…

Sophie Rochester asks in a recent article on The Bookseller, “Can publishing keep its soul in an increasingly data-driven future?” Rochester seems to have her doubts. She makes the argument that data-driven decision making conflicts with the creative intuition of editors and authors. If all book publishers do is chase sales data, then they will…

The dates for the 2016 Yale Publishing Course have been announced and applications to attend are now being accepted. The educational event gathers mid- to senior-level book publishing professionals to discuss leaderships strategies as well as the most pressing issues facing the industry. YPC will be held on July 31-August 5 in New Haven, CT.…

At the dawn of digital content distribution there were many excited ideas about the possibilities of computerized information. In the 1960s, Ted Nelson and others theorized about the potential of computerized information and wrote excitedly about the possibilities of a network of interconnected digital texts. Nelson is a computer scientist and philosopher who, among other…

“Adaptive learning.” Two words that have haunted headlines and press releases ever since I started this job in 2011—and likely even before then. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone says they’re doing it too. But there are plenty of misconceptions and a lack of shared understanding between schools and companies about what…

As Book Business’ year-end trendspotting survey indicated, direct-to-consumer marketing and bookselling will be top-of-mind for all segments of the publishing industry in 2016. It’s clear from these results, as well as the slew of newly-launched consumer-facing sites, apps, and newsletters that publishers are eager to learn how consumers find books, why they buy, and how…

There's good reason to wish you could read faster. Not only do excellent book recommendations come out faster than you can note down the titles, more or less actually make it from cover to cover, but a host of highly successful people also insist that one of the surest routes to greatness is becoming an…