Beyond “Discovery”—Understanding The True Potential Of An Insight-oriented Publishing Environment

As anyone who has attended a publishing or development conference in the last few years will tell you, DISCOVERY is the one word which is repeated over-and-over. But until this point, we have been thinking about Discovery in one way only: “How will consumers discover [and purchase] my book/app/website, and how can I influence that?” In this session we will move beyond the buzzword of “discoverability” toward a deeper examination of what true discovery means for key stakeholders—publishers, authors, readers, content partners, and how this insight can transform our entire approach to the future publishing model.

• What exactly does an expanded definition of Discovery mean for Authors, Publishers, Readers, and Third-Party Content Creators?
1. Authors – understanding, building, & conversing with audience
2. Publishers – understanding the demand curve, emerging opportunities for content, and moving beyond POS data toward deeper forms of consumer intelligence
3. Reader/Consumers – effective ways of discovering content, connecting with communities across book-centric platforms, authentic communication with creators, consumer as creator, the blurring of traditional roles in publishing
4. Third-Party Content creators (apps, other kinds of media) – transcending traditional silos to reach new audiences through innovative ways of content association

• Can we imagine a world where we understand demand first, production second?
1. Transforming our information environment from a following model to a leading model
2. Incentivizing audience to create opportunities for discovery using new media principals
3. Creating new spaces for community to connect around content
4. What are the limitations of advance discovery on the creative process?

• What are the current challenges in the model that inhibit discovery?
1. What implications does an increasingly digital environment have in this area?

• Are there ways publishers and authors can take control of discovery without being beholden to expensive or inaccessible data and retail partners?

• What kind of emerging tools offer new paths to Discovery?
1. Data-mining & Scrapers
2. Visualizations
3. Conversations with Audience
4. Consumer intelligence reporting

• Given that we’re now seeing a snap-back-to-local phenomenon created by an environment where consumers are relying almost exclusively on “local recommenders” they trust, how does the market participate in that conversation?

• What are the opportunities in the marketplace for new providers of insight & intelligence?