A look at BookScan, a subscription service for book sales data, exclusive to publishing executives, and its open-access alternative Post45 Data Collective
Culture industries increasingly use our data to sell us their products. It's time to use their data to study them. Tweets: @intelwire , @sesmith , @_ryanruby_ , @mckinneykelsey , @edburmila , and @susanleewrites See also Mediagazer Tweets: @intelwire : Aside from the rightly noted biases in BookScan data, I can tell you from personal experience that it's wildly inaccurate to actual sales https://twitter.com/... S. Eek Smith / @sesmith : I think people outside of publishing do not fully understand the completely bewildering and wild set of uh ‘business practices’ that hold sway in the industry. https://twitter.com/... Ryan Ruby / @_ryanruby_ : This article by Melanie Walsh is more than just important research, it's a public service. A must read for scholars, authors, and anyone interested in publishing literacy about how access to sales data is controlled by the industry—and the ventures that are democratizing it. https://twitter.com/... Kelsey Mckinney / @mckinneykelsey : it is truly so funny whenever I have to explain to anyone in media or hollywood that we have no idea how many copies of books sell. one of my favorite convos https://twitter.com/... Ed Burmila / @edburmila : Never ask an author how many copies their book sold. Not because it's a rude question, but because they literally have no idea and if they try to find out nobody tells them. https://twitter.com/... Susan Lee / @susanleewrites : The most surprising thing in this article is the COST for access to Bookscan. That, coupled w/ the industry-wide acknowledgement/acceptance that Bookscan isn't even entirely accurate makes the fact that we rely so heavily on these number utterly baffling and bananas. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Book publishing runs on a data monopoly: BookScan sells point-of-sale figures by subscription, and per the reporting only publishing executives can buy in — while critics like Ed Burmila describe the numbers as biased and wildly inaccurate against actual sales. Post45 Data Collective is the countermove, opening book sales data to anyone so scholars and writers can study the industry instead of just being sold to by it.
The piece lands mid-arc of publishing fighting over its digital plumbing. Publishers already meter access to books themselves — charging libraries an average of $40 per ebook copy under lending restrictions, feeding vendors like OverDrive whose licensing business has soared — and are suing to define ebook ownership outright in the four-publisher lawsuit against the Internet Archive. Gatekeeping sales data is the same instinct applied to information about the market rather than the books in it.
First-order effects
- Researchers, journalists, and writers outside publishing gain access to sales figures previously reserved for executives, letting them independently audit claims the industry makes about what sells.
- Publishers' reliance on BookScan becomes a liability: documented bias and inaccuracy in the dataset is now something outsiders can demonstrate rather than merely allege.
Second-order effects
- If open data shows acquisition and marketing decisions resting on faulty numbers, pressure mounts on BookScan to correct its methodology or widen access beyond the executive subscription base.
- Data gatekeeping joins ebook licensing as a contested layer of the book economy — the same publishers restricting library lending through vendors like OverDrive now face scrutiny of the information layer they monopolize.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — industries monetizing audience data being studied with their own data — points toward open-access datasets becoming a standing accountability mechanism for culture industries, parallel to the legal fights over who controls ebook infrastructure.
- If open alternatives hold up methodologically, publishing's information asymmetry between insiders and everyone else narrows structurally, weakening the case for exclusive data subscriptions across adjacent media markets.
The trend: Culture industries that profit from closed data and licensed access are meeting open-access challengers — Post45 Data Collective versus BookScan is the publishing instance of a broader contest over who controls cultural markets' information layer.