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…
I almost bought an Amazon Echo last November. It was on sale for $129 and I figured it was too good a deal to pass up. Amazon promised two-day Prime delivery but they got overwhelmed by all the orders and, like many others, they botched mine and said I might receive it by end of…
In the age of mobile, digital, social, and online shopping, brand and marketing messages are increasingly interpreted and catalogued by computers. As a result, metadata is taking on a new and important role for authors and publishers. It is becoming a crucial foundation for successful direct-to-consumer marketing and discoverability. We all know that content consumption…
I’m convinced we’re still in the very early stages of ebook evolution. The current print-under-glass model works great for some books but long-form digital content has so much more potential. The market will ultimately move beyond the only option readers have today of consuming dumb content on smart devices. Content enrichment is one way forward…
More than ever before, publishers are attempting to sell books directly to consumers. But, what if this trend plays right into Amazon’s hands? What if the effort to shift sales away from Amazon actually gives them more power? Could the direct-to-consumer (D2C) movement backfire and create a worse dynamic in the industry? We live in…
Let’s pretend for a moment that there are no bookstores and as publishers we still need to sell books. How are we going to do that? For starters, let’s take a look at the recent trends for physical bookstore sales. There was welcome relief this year that sales at physical stores have stabilized, although I…
Each time I finish a book I end up going through the same inefficient process: I head to Amazon and a couple of other sites to look for other titles on similar topics that might interest me. I usually find several candidates and then I go through the equally inefficient process of requesting samples for…
First published in 2014, the second edition of the controversial “Author Earnings Report” was released this week. Written by the mysterious “Data Guy,” the report claims that traditional publishers, particularly the Big 5, have experienced a significant slump in ebook sales on Amazon in 2015 while indie-published authors surged ahead. According to Data Guy, “The…
Last week Penguin Random House U.K. announced the launch of a new direct-to-consumer site that combines the content from its best-known brands, Ladybird, Puffin, and Penguin. The new site comes a little less than a year after Penguin Random House relaunched its U.S.-based website, with the goal of becoming a destination for readers and a…
Google recently published a document entitled Micro-Moments: Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile. You can download the PDF here. It’s a quick read and worth a close look. I’ve long felt the publishing industry is too focused on simply delivering the print experience on digital devices, something often referred to as “print under…
