Data Science: A Primer for Authors
My dream is to spend more time writing and less time with marketing and promotion. I’ve asked Data Science Jobs Canada to drop by and share some advice on using data science – all the behind-the-scenes info we can get our hands on – to maximize our efforts for book sales. Thanks so much Data Science Jobs Canada!
What is Data Science?
Data science is a field which uncovers knowledge and insights by extracting information from data. It can be thought of as applied statistics. Common processes include collecting, storing, processing, analyzing, and communicating data. Knowledge of data mining, statistics, and programming are useful skills for those working in this occupation.
Data science is a fast growing field. Using technology, organizations are able to acquire and store large amounts of data more efficiently than ever before. Using data science, these organizations analyze data to discover insights, uncover knowledge, and ultimately make actionable decisions to improve their business.
Data Science for Authors
Data science is for everyone!
Even without a large organization, and even if you are intimidated by computers, math and statistics, you can still use data to help you as an author! Individual authors have access to surprising amounts of data through book selling platforms and social media.
Here are a few things you can do as an author with public data or you have available through your own accounts:
- Research trends in book genres and sub-genres before you write to identify which books may sell more
- Research top search words on book selling platforms to optimize your book product pages
- Experiment with different advertising images and copy to improve how many people view and click your ads
- Review your social media analytics to understand how to best promote your books
- Experiment with different book covers to improve your sales (unfortunately, people do judge books by their covers!)
How to Use Data Science
Reviewing your social media analytics is one way to use data to your advantage!
Using the data you have available is a lot like a scientific experiment. At a basic level, you can try different things, review the data, and keep doing things that work!
One area you can apply this to is social media. Concretely, this means you can take a look at your Twitter analytics to see which tweets had the most impressions or clicks. You can see the text you used, which media you included, and which hashtags you used to apply it to future tweets! On the flip side, you can also assess your worst performing tweets to try and discover which practices you should reduce. Even if you don’t use complex analysis techniques, you still may be able to discover useful learnings and improve over time.
Note: With Twitter specifically, analytics are off by default so be sure to turn them on!
About Data Science Jobs Canada
Know someone who is looking for a job in data science? Send them to DataScienceJobsCanada.com . Data Science Jobs Canada lists new jobs weekly and specializes in Canadian data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence opportunities across the country. We also publish data science salary guides to position you for success! Join our mailing list or follow us on social media to learn more.