From the "duh" files

[barbarienne]

I swear, I wish I could figure out how to legitimately market my brain to the publishing industry. The WSJ has an article about the gathering and analysis of ereader data and how it can be leveraged to create reader-targeted books. There are of course concerns about books being made-to-order and thereby killing innovation [1], or the invasion of

Comments

[dsgood]

It's not just Amazon, or just the publishing industry, which makes odd recommendations. Twitter thinks I'd be interested in reports on New Zealand road conditions. I don't drive, and I'm not exactly near NZ.

[barbarienne]

I would be interested in reports on NZ road conditions, but only as a curiosity, or if I were setting a story there...

[barbarienne]

You are the people they should have been talking to all along. It's like they forget there are end-users of the book who are forking over the money.

[dorianegray]

-->Are there still people who don't habitually lie to online requests for data?

Me.

Then again, (1) I don't shop online; online shops to me are a useful way of browsing and doing price comparisons before I go to the bricksandmortar establishment, and (2) generally when some bit of the Internet demands to know who I am I tell it to fuck off and go use some other bit of the internet.

[barbarienne]

Sometimes I want to use that bit of the internet--such as livejournal--but it won't let me unless I fill in data. I fill it in with terrible, terrible lies. ;-)

The only truth a website ever gets out of me is my credit card and shipping information, because that's the only way to get the stuff I order.

[dorianegray]

Mostly, I don't want to use that bit of the Internet that much.

If I do want to use it that much I do actually tell it the truth, because it has never occurred to me to not. Unless it wants to know where I live or when I was born or...well, then I tell it to fuck off, because if it starts looking like it's going to either send me junk mail or steal my identity, I don't want to use it that much.

[sartorias]

*nodding* no surprises here. Why am I not surprised?

[barbarienne]

Because there are no surprises?

Dammit, I want surprises!

[safewrite]

Good posting. The relevant bit of the comments to me was they are forgetting there are END USERS who fork over the cash. Anyone worth their salt in sales will tell you that you find a need and fill it, and that you focus on what the customer wants, and what the benefit is.

I wonder if marketing is so full of teh stoopid because they are a step removed from the customer by the sales department; this means no actual customer contact. Books are not widgets. Genre books are especially not widgets.

[barbarienne]

And in publishing, the sales department is actually removed from the end user/customer! The sales department has been focused (until now, with the ebooks) on selling to the bookbuyer--the guy at the chain-store corporate office who orders mass quantities to distribute to every retail location.

They may need to go back to the old mass-market ethos of *gasp* giving a crap about what the reader might like to buy!