Your Ebook Knows More About Your Reading Habits Than You

Photo via  jblyberg

It is not just Big Brother watching you but your E-book knows your reading habits as per this Wall Street Journal article. In the past publishers and authors had no idea what readers did once they finished reading a book but now ebooks are providing insight into what those readers have done since book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers opened the app and how much tine they spent reading pages and passages. When you purchase a Kindle users sign an agreement granting the company permission to store information from the device such as the last page you read, your bookmarks, highlights, and notes that information in its data servers.

Data collected from Nooks reveal that readers whom bought the first book in a popular series such as Fifty Shades of Grey tend to tear through all the books in the series as if they were reading a single novel.So why is this important? With this new data publishers will now be pushing the hot sellers and phase out older classics since those older classics will not catch the readers interest. Some publishers test on a digital format and if the digital book works will eventually release a print edition. But do not fear there may still be hope as per Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, “We’re not going to shorten ‘War and Peace’ because someone didn’t finish it.”