A few days (posts, weeks, digests?) ago, Vonda brought up the issue of
needed information on what was selling and how and where, or something along
those lines. I was reminded of this while reading the latest issue of
_Newsweek_ which has an article on a service called BookScan--described as a
"data-gathering" service which is offering specific and comprehensive
information on book sales by assembling data from the BAR CODES. This
process started with SoundScan which did it for records (a
"revolution")--and now they are trying to apply it to books. It's a
fascinating article--I'd say check it out if you see the current (week of
November 17-21) issue lying around. Publishers apparently aren't rushing to
sign up (it costs), and questions are being raised, but this service may be
the first to offer the kind of data tracking that would be useful. The final
quote: "small books could actually benefit because publishers would be able
to manage them better."
Robin
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