Why digital book publishers are starting to embrace data

paidContent reporting:
With more than 20 percent of Americans over the age of 16 having read an ebook in the past year, and publishers seeing more than 20 percent of revenues come from ebook sales, there’s no question the future of ebooks is bright, and the industry has a lot of potential customers.
But how exactly ebook publishers reach that audience and how the industry tracks who’s interested in reading what is less clear. A series of ebook publishers who spoke at our PaidContent Live conference in New York on Wednesday talked about the critical importance of gathering data on readership and consumption, and using it to transform the industry:
“The old eveolution of the book publishers used to be very allergic to data. And what you just heard is a very different approach from that. For us it’s about metadata and surfacing. And then rinse and repeat,” said Dominique Raccah, the publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks. “Metadata is a new term in our industry, but it really is the key.”
Raccah pointed out that unless publishers know who is reading the content, it’s hard to craft specific marketing messages or know what people respond to:
“It’s really important to know that book publishers know a lot about what touches readers,” she said. “So it’s important to help craft those messages in interesting ways.”
http://paidcontent.org/2013/04/17/why-digital-book-publishers-are-starting-to-embrace-data/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=7721b6a87b-c%3Amed+d%3A04-19&utm_medium=email