Comments on: In Soviet Russia, eBook Reads You

By: kimboosan

kimboosan — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:06:44 +0000

Reading your concerns about how this data might change the writing or reading process, I was struck with a profound sense of “meh.” Your comments seem predicated on the fact that these kinds of changes would be de facto negative in nature (if that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t be *concerned* about them). But I’m not really sure why this is something to worry about since the interaction between writer, publisher and reader has pretty much been in a state of flux since writing was invented. That aspects of it change is not a horrible thing; the balance of good-to-bad is constantly shifting but not really becoming unbalanced. So the 50-page rule gets replaced by some other metric (and it will). So what? People will always find ways to measure, no matter the format. It’s not like we are crumbling into chaos here, which is kind of the under-tone I pick up from your “concerns.”

As far as the feedback to the writing process, well yes, that will change. Again, I’m really “meh” about that. Writers whose only concern is writing a block buster will spend a lot of time crafting their work to reader expectations…which, if you are unfamiliar with genre writing, let me tell is something they already do just with less data to do it with. Writers who are more literary and artistic won’t much care about how long a reader spends on a page, much as they haven’t cared for the last 100+ years. You can change the tools, the format, and the distribution but you can’t change the nature of the the writer’s impulse or their motivations. *shrug*

I think the real concern here is the privacy issue, which I don’t feel particularly confidant to comment on, although I do agree with Steve Thomas to a certain extent.

By: Michael Steffens

Michael Steffens — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 19:58:34 +0000

Steve, Amazon is already marketing on an individual level to people using library loans. Patrons have told me, with some irritation, that they get regular emails urging them to buy books they’ve borrowed through the library. I don’t think it’s a big leap to that program being expanded to other products (“People who bought X also bought Y”) or sold to other entities.

By: Steve Thomas (@spotrick)

Steve Thomas (@spotrick) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 02:19:28 +0000

I’m not fussed about the privacy issue, because I don’t believe they’re interested in you as an individual, only as a data point. While we all like to think we’re unique, fact is we all tend to act in similar ways. So accumulating data on a large number of readers can tell the publisher interesting things about their books, and whether they’re marketable. But that’s the real concern: will publisher drop titles because they’re unpopular? One promise of ebooks is that books can be published even if the market is small. But when publishers treat ebooks the same as print (and claim that production cost is about the same), the niche market argument will fall down.

By: Mike the Librarian

Mike the Librarian — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:49:46 +0000

Andy, as often, I agree with you down the line. Beyond Overdrive, I have been more concerned about Amazon. I try to tell my patrons that Amazon will use their information to sell to them and perhaps sell to others to sell to them, but they’re willing to give up that valuable information in exchange for access to the latest Twilight, seemingly. Just as Google attempts to drive the perfect searching experience, book publishers are trying to drive the perfect reading experience. I don’t think a stop-reading datum will result in short stories, but I could easily see stats being compiled and used on virtually every other aspect of reading. At the risk of cliche, I see a MiniTrue deciding what will be popular and therefore virtually interchangeable. And you’re right, also about the ereading experience. First, it’s an experience of what’s available, which skews the numbers. Who it’s available to, which skews the numbers. Finally, the situation, which produces a further skew. Vacation? Hospital waiting room? Everyday reading? Hard to know. How does that change how we read and what we read? For example, I don’t read long novels on my smartphone. I tend not to read nonfiction on an ereader. I usually have an ereader with me when I don’t have much time to dedicate — often only 15 or 20 minutes. Does this mean that short, snappy fiction is my preferred read? No! Or at least not even most of the time. This truly does not bode well for the future of writing and reading.