Jellybooks Introduce ePub Reader Analytics

The buzz is currently is about big data, or collecting very granular consumer and transactional information and then being able to analyse it. The results may help spot trends, aid development, identify detail which was impossible to compute, or even recognise using traditional methods. As we gather more and more data, the trick is to exploit it in a ways that improve the product, enhance the consumer experience and increases revenues or profitability.

It sounds simple, but it isn’t.

The first challenge is to collect the data, the second is to be able to analyse what you probably don’t know, but assume you do, the third is to develop the results such that they make a return. Many companies have laboured over toolkits such as Google Analytics. Many have seen the money going out the door but not necessarily seen the return coming back in. Today it often seems that everyone and anyone who can spell IT and marketing are offering ways to analyse this, raise that and increase everything.

Now Jellybooks claim to have cracked the analytics for ebooks on 3^rd party apps with their new Reader Analytics, which allows book publishers to analyse how their customers read books across third party reading apps and devices. Jellybooks will be giving a sneak preview at Digital Book World next week, aimed at the publisher and utilises either their own invited focus groups and or Jellybooks’ own subscribers to analyse know users’ reading habits.

Andrew Rhomberg, founder of Jellybooks describes the Reader Analytics as, ‘An ePub analytics tool for the smartphone, tablet, eReader generation that works offline and with 3rd party apps and aims to understand how consumers interact with ebooks that they buy through Kindle, iBooks, Kobo and the like.’ It effectively records the reader’s progress against a title, identifying when each new chapter is opened, the reader’s reading speed, the length of the reading sessions, the time of day when the title was read and when the book was abandoned or finished.

However, this sort of analysis and level of information has long been available to some publishers. Whilst services providing online digital libraries, inspection copies attached to ecatalogues or synchronised walled garden environments have tracked every click. With the inspection copy they know not only what was inspected and shared with others, but importantly whether the copy was even opened.

So what is different with the Jellybook offer?

In accepting a free book and enrolling in a focus group, participating readers agree for their personal reading data to be analysed. There is both a potential strength and also a potential weakness. Firstly, like the consumers that agree to be on TV monitoring panels, it captures real users but in doing so we analyse the known, not the unknown. People who read books today are likely to read the book and will continue to read other books tomorrow. Those who are part time, or no time readers, will remain unhooked. Maybe the offer of a free ebook could entice new readers but will their habits be the same when they have to pay for the book?

Rhomberg also notes that, ‘A truly unbiased tool is only possible with an approach that forces cookies and tracking software on users without their consent. That is neither legal, not morally justifiable in our view.’

Some Marketeers will claim that focus groups often exist to reaffirm their presumptions and often don’t serve an independent perspective. Others believe that they are vital market testers. The problem is that it’s all too often, six of one and half a dozen of the other.

The Jellybook book community which claims some 60,000 avid and passionate readers clearly offers more scope and can generate its own reading groups.

But again does it pass the ‘is it wise dotcom test’?

Trade books, which are going to be the majority of those within the scheme, tend to be one off works so offer marginal editorial improvement unless they are pre-press galley copies. However, simply adding more ‘editors’ to the mix surely could potentially dilute not enhance the work. On the other hand, the potential marketing input on the positioning the work could be of benefit, but only if there is suitable elasticity in the marketing budget to respond.

There is the question of the exposure of the pool of pre-press books available and whether there is risk associated with opening this up to the Jellybook community to potentially see all new books on offer and how this would be policed such that these are all genuine independent readers and not potential competitors? It may matter little today but tomorrow will they potential have input to affect the final cut and if not why are they there?

After publication the benefits in fictional work start to diminish as sales and money will speak louder and further titles within a series will be either contracted or down to performance to date.

So forgetting the technology and functionality, is the Reader Analytics to become a pre-press testing market tool, or a post publication one? Is it technology looking for a home or a business need applying technology to resolve it? Rhomberg says, ‘We put so much emphasis on it being a pre-publication tool, precisely, because we think it has the most value and can lead to actionable results at this stage. In today’s industry the demand after publication is much, much more limited.’

We remember when we provided a major academic publisher with a potentially huge data bank on every click made by every student and academic. This was across a significant digital library at both work and chapter level, as well as the same information against digital inspection copies. Needless to say they were interested in who didn’t open an inspection copy, but where less interested in discovering the digital needle in the haystack. Perhaps times have changed and one would expect and hope so within that market and some others too, but we feel trade fiction is different. 

We wish Jellybooks well with their new service and it will be interesting to see how it develops and is adopted. 

Here are more detail on the Jellybooks tool for authors, publishers and how to sign up.

eMarketing Thoughts: 3. Books for free?

Publishers in all sectors have always given away physical books to promote their sale. In some cases we hope to get it reviewed, in others it’s treated as a sample and in others such as education and it’s given with the aim of achieving the book’s adoption. In some the cases, the percentage of inspection copies that are ‘given away’ could be between 10 and 15% of the initial print run and that’s without the associated costs of dispatch and follow-up. In some cases the inspection copy is even invoiced and a return is requested if it is not adopted – more waste. The extra copies can be well worth the cost if they lead to greater sales, but in today’s difficult economic climate and digital world there are now potentially smarter ways to achieve the same and more, for less cost and waste.

People often say that the review practice of giving away physical copies is now better managed and that far fewer books are given away today. Others will point to the basement floor in The Strand bookstore in New York and the shelves of gratis review copies that have been cashed in and some with Editors letters still inside! A trade journal told us that the practice was dramatically reduced. We merely asked them to turn around in their office and describe what they say on their shelves – books. How many had they actually bought let alone read?

Whether its review, sample, or inspection copies, there are now better ways to achieve the same result at far less cost.

Digitally galley and un-proofed copies have been around for some time and continue to grow as they become easier to generate. The challenge here is to ensure that they are created at the appropriate time, that they are secured as assets and that follow up is achieved. Digital inspection copies are now also starting to appear and offer more cultural challenges but significant opportunities for both efficiency and sales across the adoption cycle.

It is not a case of merely scattering digital copies where once we scattered physical ones.

Digital inspection copies should created the opportunity to understand what is read, annotated, bookmarked by whom and when and even if the books was ever opened. They offer the opportunity to better manage distribution lists, offer shared copies, understand what is and isn’t important, capture feedback and follow through the process to adoption. Joining the dots from inspection review to purchase in today’s physical world is often difficult and wasteful. However, irrespective of whether the resultant sales are for a physical or digital rendition, the digital world offers everyone involved in the process reward and benefit. Some may see the digital inspection copy as the vehicle to cut out the campus store and go direct, others as the vehicle to engage the store and strengthen its role in the process and join the dots.

Some may say that reviewers will only accept physical copies and that may be true for some, but not all.

Digital marketing is not exclusive to digital books and removes physical waste.

eMarketing Thoughts: 1. Show Me the Results

We aim to write four more articles this week to expand our views on eMarketing; the use of widgets, digital inspection copies, catalogues and the creation and management of context and content.

Marketing holds the biggest digital prize for the book industry in these changing times. Some have long argued that Context is more valuable than Content. In the late 90’s we were responsible for the highly acclaimed publishing research programme ‘Publishing in the 21st Century’ and some would suggest that our most significant report that we published was ‘N to X : From Content to Context’.

Today’s task is not finding digital content but finding good or the right digital content. Its about finding the digital needle in the digital haystack. We have many sources of information, many degrees of detail, many different ways to look for and value content and content itself is no longer a single format.

We are moving away from the advertising budget being spent on full page spreads in the trade press to viral and direct marketing, from scattering seeds in the wind to running campaigns where every hit, click and resolution can be tracked and the marketing department held accountable for spend! We know can find out not only what we know but potentially what we don’t know.

In yesterday’s world we produced glossy printed catalogues and posted them to anyone standing. Yet we had no idea who read what page or even opened them. Did they themselves provide all the information needed to make a decision or merely opened the door? We distributed advance information sheets which fell somewhere between a flysheet and a genuine information sheet and often ended up being filed with the waste paper. We spent money advertising to the channel to get the book on the shelf and had little left to promote the book to the public. The trade magazines were happy to take the money for the full page colour advert but did it deliver, give demonstrable results, or merely spend the money?

As we move it the digital eMarketing world we are not obviating traditional spend but supplementing it with more auditable and accountable campaigns that can even be integrated into the whole process and help join the dots from Author to Reader.

The Digital Only Monograph?

The University of Michigan Press has announced that it will shift its scholarly publishing from being primarily a traditional print operation to one that is primarily digital. They now plan to migrate some 90% of their monographs to digital only renditions over the next two years but enabling readers still to be able to get a physical copy by print on demand.

University presses are experiencing challenging times and are adapting and changing. In the US The University of Missouri Press and the State University of New York Press have announced layoffs and Utah State University Press is facing the removal of university support.

Michigan clearly see the glass half full and potential. The process is less expensive, faster and offers obvious savings in printing and distribution, but offers the opportunity to publish more works and distribute them electronically to a broader audience. Digital also offers the opportunity to market the content, create digital inspection copies and reviews and thereby reduce waste and cost. Books that may have been classed as economically marginal or deemed not worthy from a scholarly perspective can now be reconsidered.

Interestingly and refreshingly in today’s climate the shift is claimed not to be designed to save money, but to make better use of the money being spent on the press and no jobs will be eliminated.

In terms of pricing, Michigan plan to develop site licenses so that libraries can gain access to all of the press's books over the course of a year for a flat rate. This is a similar approach to that being explored by Duke University Press, whose e-Duke Books, provides digital access for a one-year period at a flat rate.