Data and marketing and sales and I are not super well acquainted, so this question may not be completely consistent with the piece, but I’m curious to understand the impact on readers. If publishing companies don’t have direct access to the data, could it be said that we are essentially having broken conversation wherein the publishers aren’t meeting reader expectations/wants and readers aren’t able to fully communicate that want? In terms of practical impact, what are we seeing readers experience? (Also, if this question is way off base or if I missed the answer within the piece - I apologize!).
I think your comment about "having broken conversations" aligns with my impressions of the impact of this lack of data on readers.
I think there's a very loud conversation about what a minority of readers supposedly want (or what is getting attention) that is completely influenced by other factors (what books are most controversial and likely to lead to engagement, for example), and it's very hard to actually understand what an unheard majority of readers want.
That makes sense! Do you think it’s reasonable to speculate about potential impact over time? Or is there too many variables to be worth consideration?
I wonder, are any self-published authors including links to reader surveys in their ebooks? But even if authors collected data individually, there still wouldn’t be an aggregated source of data.
Absolutely love this post! These are some really valuable insights! As a Substacker who also major in romance novels (I mostly do book reviews and recommendations). I am ‘in’ the romance fields as a reviewer and a reader. But this post simply just takes a step back and see it from someone who is not in the field but have an understanding of this field. But I think we could also consider different scales of data regarding romance reader data. We, as readers will have a data of the no. of books we read, dates. Whilst publisher might have hold a larger scale of data. It’s mind blowing to see how reading is transformed into data, on an individual, publisher and even on an internet/ social media levels. Absolutely love every part of this post!
Data and marketing and sales and I are not super well acquainted, so this question may not be completely consistent with the piece, but I’m curious to understand the impact on readers. If publishing companies don’t have direct access to the data, could it be said that we are essentially having broken conversation wherein the publishers aren’t meeting reader expectations/wants and readers aren’t able to fully communicate that want? In terms of practical impact, what are we seeing readers experience? (Also, if this question is way off base or if I missed the answer within the piece - I apologize!).
I think your comment about "having broken conversations" aligns with my impressions of the impact of this lack of data on readers.
I think there's a very loud conversation about what a minority of readers supposedly want (or what is getting attention) that is completely influenced by other factors (what books are most controversial and likely to lead to engagement, for example), and it's very hard to actually understand what an unheard majority of readers want.
That's just my opinion and speculation, though!
That makes sense! Do you think it’s reasonable to speculate about potential impact over time? Or is there too many variables to be worth consideration?
I wonder, are any self-published authors including links to reader surveys in their ebooks? But even if authors collected data individually, there still wouldn’t be an aggregated source of data.
Thinking back on it, as a reader, I don't recall see any on the ones I've read.
As a data analyst and a romantasy writer, I am appalled the publishers have abdicated control over their own data.
Absolutely love this post! These are some really valuable insights! As a Substacker who also major in romance novels (I mostly do book reviews and recommendations). I am ‘in’ the romance fields as a reviewer and a reader. But this post simply just takes a step back and see it from someone who is not in the field but have an understanding of this field. But I think we could also consider different scales of data regarding romance reader data. We, as readers will have a data of the no. of books we read, dates. Whilst publisher might have hold a larger scale of data. It’s mind blowing to see how reading is transformed into data, on an individual, publisher and even on an internet/ social media levels. Absolutely love every part of this post!