B & N’s Nook accounts for about 25% of the e-book market.
Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo—whichever company you buy your e-books from—knows more about your reading habits than you yourself may know.
For instance, according to a Wall Street Journal article they know:
• How many hours it takes you to read a book
• What parts of a book you choose to highlight
• What the first thing is that you do in the bookstore after you finish a book
• Which books you quit reading without finishing them
• If you skip the introductions
• How much time you spend reading any chapter or other part of a book
• What search terms you use to find books when shopping
The retailers use this data both granularly—for instance to make suggestions to you of other books you might like—and globally—for instance to pinpoint the degree of eroticism in romance titles that will return the maximum sales.
The retailers are beginning to share this information with publishers who, I assume, will pressure authors to write books that cater to the details the data provides.
Will this intensify or squash the creativity of authors? Will books begin to be aimed at the lowest common denominator as are TV sitcoms or will this allow authors to truly satisfy every desire in the nooks and crannies of the book reader universe?
You predict.
Just a write thought.