Your E-Book Is Reading You

[ctg]

Digital-book publishers and retailers now know more about their readers than ever before. How that's changing the experience of reading. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...TTopCarousel_1




Very interesting article from WSJ.

[Vertigo]

Indeed it is a very interesting article and there is a lot of potential there for everyone -- vendors, publishers, agents, authors -- to learn and improve the whole reading experience.

But I'm a little (or maybe a lot) concerned about how they get the data. If they are getting it from formally recruited reading groups who allow them to get the data from their readers then fine. But if they gather it from the devices without permission whenever they log on then that becomes quite worrying.

It seems Amazon ask permission when you buy a Kindle, but I wonder how many people read the small print and realise what they have given permission for (or more likely do they even noticed the tick box that is probably already pre-ticked?):

Kindle users sign an agreement granting the company permission to store information from the device—including the last page you've read, plus your bookmarks, highlights, notes and annotations—in its data servers.

It's not something they can do with my reader as I don't go online with it. I always buy direct to my pc and then send it to my reader. I can keep everything managed and backed up better that way.

[ctg]

Electronic books more than doubled in popularity in 2011, with ebooks outselling hardcover books in adult fiction for the first time, according to a survey released on Wednesday.


Net sales of e-books jumped to 15 percent of the market in 2011 from 6 percent in 2010, according to a report by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group. The groups compiled data provided by nearly 2,000 publishers.


Total overall U.S. book market sales declined 2.5 percent to $27.2 billion in 2011 from $27.9 billion in 2010, the report said.

While ebooks increased in strength, bringing in more than $2 billion in 2011, the majority of publishers’ revenue still came from print books, with $11.1 billion in 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8II5LB20120718