Data Lives Don't Matter

I read a recent article in Forbes magazine about why those standardized tests we have all of the students taking in K-12 schools really don't matter. This was not an issue why some form of assessment is not important, but when the assessment is not looking at what is being taught, there was huge disconnect.

What they were noticing is that scores were going up, but in terms of college readiness, the students were far from there. The disconnect came from students being taught to take the test, but it was not truly measuring the actual learning. It is this piece that got me thinking about the publishing industry.

We are currently living in a society that is  data driven. We cannot seem to make a move without doing some data analysis to see what is going on. While this approach has some merits, the issue we have now is that people are not looking at how that data was accumulated. Much like the standardized tests that drive what we are teaching, even though the data demonstrated students ability to take a test, not students actual knowledge.

Publishers (although it is more likely the marketing departments and "higher-ups") are making a lot of decisions based on numbers, but not really looking to see what initiated those numbers. Let's look at a few.

• Historical romance is not selling in North America. According to the data, this is a huge issue and one that is driving what those publishers are acquiring. Here is the issue though. Publishers are not putting a huge number of historicals out to the North American market. Harlequin, for example, stopped directly putting the Harlequin Historical line directly out to North America. It was available through online sites and special order, they do have a "North American Cover" but they don't put the books out. The ironic part is they will frequently say they cannot make larger moves with Historical authors until they see North American sales.
• Contemporary romance is the thing that is selling. Ummm, yes. When this is the only thing that is put out to the public. This goes along with the idea that Amish Romance is hot now. When it is the only thing you put out, that would be the case.

This is just two examples. There are others though. I worked with one publisher who was frustrated about sales for one of the authors. Sales were not there. Here is the issue. It happened when Borders collapsed (there went 50% of the sales) and they were in a hard core negotiation with a distributor, and until that was resolved, they were not going to send those books out.

But this goes beyond simply the publishers. Authors do the same thing. They proclaim facts about their writing that are probably not as accurate as they proclaim. We have to ask ourselves, where did those numbers come from? If you have a street team who has signed on to give you great review, it might not be that accurate. If you have family and friends hyping you up, that too might not be the most accurate.

Again, I could probably go on, but I think you get the idea.

Before you start examining numbers or pushing numbers, make sure you examine HOW those numbers were created. Along the same lines, how are those numbers being interpreted?