{"id":652987,"date":"2013-04-17T15:49:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T19:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/?p=227901"},"modified":"2013-04-17T15:49:01","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T19:49:01","slug":"why-digital-book-publishers-are-starting-to-embrace-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/652987","title":{"rendered":"Why digital book publishers are starting to embrace data"},"content":{"rendered":"

With more than\u00a020 percent of Americans over the age of 16 having read an ebook in the past year<\/a>, and publishers seeing more than\u00a020 percent of revenues come from ebook sales, there\u2019s no question the future of ebooks is bright, and the industry has a lot of potential customers.<\/p>\n

But how exactly ebook publishers reach that audience and how the industry tracks who\u2019s interested in reading what is less clear. A series of ebook publishers who spoke at our PaidContent Live\u00a0conference\u00a0in New York on Wednesday<\/a> talked about the critical importance of gathering data on readership and consumption, and using it to transform the industry:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old eveolution of the book publishers used to be very allergic to data. And what you just heard is a very different approach from that. For us it\u2019s about metadata and surfacing. And then rinse and repeat,\u201d said\u00a0Dominique Raccah<\/a>, the publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks. \u201cMetadata is a new term in our industry, but it really is the key.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raccah pointed out that unless publishers know who is reading the content, it\u2019s hard to craft specific marketing messages or know what people respond to:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to know that book publishers know a lot about what touches readers,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s important to help craft those messages in interesting ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Chou<\/a>, the\u00a0CMO for Open Road Integrated Media, said they\u2019ve seen a lot of success working with Twitter, as well as sponsored stories in Facebook, to drive traffic and understand where customers are coming from.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen after a while, you start understanding what the best partners are,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Evan Ratliff, founder and CEO of\u00a0Atavist<\/a>, said they have a small team but because they\u2019re especially focused on finding customers by building up the Atavist brand, understanding data on the company\u2019s products is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also on a very small level, we\u2019re experiment with different ways of reaching people and social media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Check out the rest of our paidContent Live 2013 coverage here<\/a>, and a video embed of the session follows below:<\/p>\n