Leveraging Data Analytics to Track Your Book Performance
Book publishing of today is not as simple as writing a book and publishing it and forgetting about everything associated with the book.
If you want to be a successful author in this day and age then you need to do a little bit more than just writing and publishing the book.
You need to utilise data to your advantage in order to understand the performance of the book in the market and make changes accordingly.
So in this blog, we are going to understand everything about data analytics in publishing starting with why data analytics matter in publishing. We will then move on to all the most important metrics to track book publishing performance.
So, let us look at why data analytics matter in publishing.
Why Data Analytics Matters in Publishing
To Identify the Buyers
The very first reason why data analytics matter is simply for the purpose of identifying who is buying the book and this includes identification of the demographic percentage of book sales based on categories like man, woman, child, national origin, age etc. This data can then be utilised for further marketing purposes.
Understanding the Locations of Sale
The second purpose of data analytics is to understand when and where the book is being sold. A book can be sold online and offline. There are classifications under online such as the primary website of the publisher as well as other eCommerce places and there are further classifications under offline as well.
Studying The Impact of Marketing
Data analytics is going to help the author understand the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns so that the impact of marketing can be studied and even changed so as to bring even more favourable results for book sales.
Optimizing Pricing and Distribution
Data is one of the most powerful tools you can ever have as an author in order to understand the market and also understand pricing and distribution and study your competitors with the help of data instead of turning to guesswork. This will then help you price your book in the best way possible so that you can expect the best kind of sales.
Improve Future Book Launches
Of course, data can be utilised for the future as well because data collected for the present book can be utilised to formulate an entire publishing strategy for any future book release and it is also going to be much more effective.
Key Metrics to Track Book Performance
Sales Data
One of the most important metrics you should collect and track in order to analyse data effectively is definitely going to be sales data in the form of books sold and revenue generated. In addition to that you should also collect data in the form of refund rates etc. The more data you have, the better of a position you will be.
Read-Through Rates (for eBooks and Subscriptions)
If you are publishing in the form of any book or subscriptions then you can also track how many pages are being read on average as well as if the readers are completing the book or even points in the book where they are losing interest. This will give you a lot of helpful data that will even help you in composing your next book.
Reviews and Ratings
Another point of data that you simply cannot ignore is going to be reviews and ratings as this can include ratings on eCommerce platforms such as Amazon. When it comes to ratings you can track everything from the average rating to the number of reviews as well as what is being written in those reviews and the sentiment analysis of those reviews with the help of keywords.
Website and Landing Page Analytics
If you are conducting book sales or marketing campaigns from your website then you get to analyse an additional set of data in the form of website visits as well as page views and even the bounds rate and time on the page of potential buyers. You can also analyse the conversion rate of the visitors on the page if they decide to make a purchase.
Social Media and Engagement Metrics
Additionally, you must not ignore social media data in the form of engagement through likes and shares as well as comments. You can also analyse data in the form of referral traffic on your sales page and even influencer mentions or hashtags of your book.
Tools and Platforms for Book Data Analytics
Amazon Author Central
In order to track sales rank as well as customer reviews and reader insights.
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Reports
In order to track and monitor sales and royalties as well as read-through rates.
Book Report
Visual dashboard for KDP data analysis.
Google Analytics
Utilised to track website traffic and reader behaviour.
Mailchimp / Sendinblue / ConvertKit
In order to track email campaign performance in the case of email marketing.
Social Listening Tools (Hootsuite, Brand24)
Utilized for tracking and monitoring book mentions and engagement on social media.
What To Do with Data Analytics for Your Book?
Refine Target Audience
You can analyse the data you have accumulated in order to understand what your actual target audience is and should be and if you are actually targeting them and you can utilise this information in order to make any changes you want.
Optimize Advertising
Sales and engagement data can be analysed in order to understand if your marketing campaigns are effective enough or if they need some kind of optimisation in order for them to be much more effective. This can help to allocate budgets for far more effective marketing campaigns through advertising.
Tweak Book Descriptions and Covers
You can utilise sales data in order to study page views and find out if the book covers and descriptions might be an issue and you can utilise this data in order to make changes to the book cover or descriptions and see if that is making a difference. This is easier to do if you are planning on an exclusive ebook release and not a physical release.
Plan Strategic Launches
Sales data can be utilised to identify the best time for book launches and also for planning special discounts and offers for special occasions such as holidays and summer breaks and much more.
When you have data in your hands you can then utilise that data in order to optimise existing marketing campaigns and existing plans of action in order to improve the performance of book sales.
If you know how to analyse data then you can even utilise that for predictive analytics in order to predict events beforehand.
We hope this blog has helped you understand how important data analytics is to being a successful author in this day and age because just publishing your book is not enough and just pouring money into the marketing budget is also not enough.
That is why if you are looking for a legacy publishing company that understands and utilises data analytics in order to help you with book performance tracking then we are here for you.
We are Orange Publishers and we are one of the most renowned book publishing companies in the industry to bring you the convenience of self-publishing and the reliability of traditional publishing all under a single roof and name.
We can help you with the entire publishing process right from manuscript formatting to book cover design and printing as well as publishing and even book promotions. We also take care of data analytics for tracking book performance as well.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do.
