Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Everybody was talking about search engines this week, from the Washington Post to Publish (featuring an interview with web superhero, John Battelle). While this is a crucial juncture for privacy issues and Internet law, writers cannot ignore these powerful tools.  I most appreciated this post by  Ben Vershbow over at the smart publishing think-tank, The Institute for the Future of the Book.  He explains how services like Google and Amazon are changing the way we research and discover books in this post:

"Amazon has long served as a valuable research tool for books in print, so much so that some university library systems are now emulating it. Recent additions to the Search Inside the Book program such as concordances, interlinked citations, and statistically improbable phrases (where distinctive terms in the book act as machine-generated tags) are especially fun to play with. Although first and foremost a retailer, Amazon feels more and more like a search system every day (and its A9 engine, though seemingly always on the back burner, is also developing some interesting features)."

Over the last two years, I've found at least 20 new writers while surfing through lists compiled by Amazon users.  As an example, check out this funny Listmania! list by a fellow fan of Kelly Link.  As online publishing grows, search engines will become the main measure of who is reading your book, registering the click-through preferences of millions of readers.  Search engines are helping publishers (and writers) measure audience demographics and target new audiences.  Can you find you on Google?   It's time to start paying attention.