(This is the seventh post in a series on the publishing industry’s new product categories.)
The mix of reader types in your readership isn’t an unchangeable fact, a curse bound in iron by the gods of old, a universal constant for all eternity. It can be changed.
Actually, that isn’t really true. The readership mix for most titles and genres is probably set in stone, one of those big blocks of ‘fixed, can’t change’ that you just have to work around.
(This is the sixth post in a series on the publishing industry’s new product categories.)
(Before I start, I’d like to make sure you know this is all speculation and probably wrong.)
My guess is you can break book consumers into broadly five different kind of behaviours. Emphasis here is on consumers so this doesn’t cover corporate, institutional, or similar professional purchases at all.
Heavy reader. People who buy several books a month, read most of them, and still have a mile-high ‘to read’ list.
(This is the fifth post in a series on the publishing industry’s new product categories.)
Data serves the status quo.
Anything new or undiscovered by definition does not have a data footprint. Existing data collection and filtering techniques have biases that do not take the unknown or unfamiliar into account.
Unless you have a clear theory and a well-designed experiment to prove or disprove it, the only thing more data will tell you is that your preconceptions and existing biases are correct.
Archive