Reader Analytics from Jellybooks: Crunching the Numbers to Improve Book Marketing and Sales

We last reported on Jellybooks in April 2016, around the same time that the New York Times dubbed the company “Moneyball for Book Publishers.”

If you’re not familiar with Jellybooks, here’s the short version: They research consumer reading behavior; that research is typically paid for by publishers. While companies like Amazon and Apple can track reader usage and data, as far as we know that data isn’t shared with publishers. So Jellybooks gathers willing readers and secures their permission to collect and report on their anonymized reading data to publishers.

Earlier this month, Jellybooks announced they would focus exclusively on reader analytics. Since 2012, they’ve been running the company primarily as a service to help readers discover books, but they’ve now decided to pivot entirely to understanding how people actually read books. Andrew Rhomberg, founder of Jellybooks, says they can answer questions such as: Does the book have a high word-of-mouth potential? What are the optimal cover, title, and description for a book? Is the audience a narrow, loyal niche—or a broad, less-committed mass-market audience?

Rhomberg says Jellybooks typically addresses these issues prior to publication, but sometimes they study why a hardcover hasn’t sold well and how performance can be improved for the paperback.

Jellybooks has already run dozens of reader analytics campaigns spanning hundreds of titles for all types of publishers, and they have provided ebooks for free to thousands of readers. Rhomberg shared these findings with us:

• Both publishers and literary agents have shown enthusiasm for how the data can maximize sales. Rhomberg says, “Using reader analytics and A/B testing, it is possible to quantitatively measure what is the best cover, the best title, the best description. … A large part of our work is to help find the right approach, target the right audience, and use the appropriate channels to reach a book’s natural audience. … We help people around the table understand what factors are responsible for a book not reaching its intended audience. Reader analytics data is highly actionable, but also provides common ground for debate.”
• Readers are much more influenced by the cover than they themselves realize. Rhomberg says Jellybooks can objectively measure the subconscious influence a cover has on readers. However, he says, “There are no hard rules why one cover works better than another. It’s not simply about standing out. The cover should raise expectations, but not create misleading expectations. We call it ‘truth in advertising.’” According to Rhomberg, the most important finding has been that the book’s word-of-mouth potential—the probability that somebody will recommend a book to others—is heavily influenced by the cover. “This surprised many publishers, but it makes perfect sense,” Rhomberg says. “Our social standing is influenced by what people see we read and recommend, and in that context covers matter greatly. Again, this is mostly something people do subconsciously without even being aware of it.”
• Reader analytics has been effective only for fiction thus far. Jellybooks has worked with a wide range of fiction—everything from Man Booker winners to mass-market fiction. But Rhomberg says they haven’t cracked nonfiction yet. “Reading behavior for nonfiction is very different to fiction, and completion rates matter less here.” Reader analytics can still work for nonfiction with a strong story arc, but for other books, Rhomberg says there’s a “high degree of optionality. This is something that still vexes us. It is a tough nut, but we hope to crack nonfiction, too.”
• Poor endings affect word of mouth. Rhomberg says, “A lousy ending that is too abrupt and leaves people hanging or wondering ‘why is this ending now’ has a very negative effect on the recommendation factor for a book. Readers want some level of closure. Authors should avoid being too clever with cliff-hangers. The last 10 to 20 pages really need to seal the deal.”

Bottom line: When learning about reader analytics, authors (and editors) often worry about the potential for such data to affect acquisitions and editorial decisions—and how writers are told to craft their stories. But Rhomberg doesn’t think Jellybooks data is likely to have any effect that early in the publishing process. He says, “Acquisition editors have to make decisions on what the potential of a book is, while what reader analytics measures is the reaction of the audience to the final work.” But, he says, there are exceptions. “We have often seen a great book for which nobody abroad seemed to show any interest. Increasingly we hold detailed data on audiences and reader preferences in multiple languages and territories. What excites is: How can we help a great book get translated, find a foreign publisher, and reach as many readers across the world as possible? This is an area where reader analytics can potentially help a lot—not as a gatekeeping tool, but as tool to make good work really shine and spread its wings. We prefer acting as evangelists for books, not judges of books.”

Note: If you would like to experience reader analytics as a test reader, Jellybooks is running a campaign with Sourcebooks until the end of August that is open to US residents. You can claim one or two free ebooks in exchange for sharing your reading data with Jellybooks and Sourcebooks.