By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    predictive analytics in dropshipping
    Predictive Analytics Helps New Dropshipping Businesses Thrive
    12 Min Read
    data-driven approach in healthcare
    The Importance of Data-Driven Approaches to Improving Healthcare in Rural Areas
    6 Min Read
    analytics for tax compliance
    Analytics Changes the Calculus of Business Tax Compliance
    8 Min Read
    big data analytics in gaming
    The Role of Big Data Analytics in Gaming
    10 Min Read
    analyst,women,looking,at,kpi,data,on,computer,screen
    Promising Benefits of Predictive Analytics in Asset Management
    11 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Marketing a book, country by country
Share
Notification Show More
Latest News
ai software development
Key Strategies to Develop AI Software Cost-Effectively
Artificial Intelligence
ai in omnichannel marketing
AI is Driving Huge Changes in Omnichannel Marketing
Artificial Intelligence
ai for small business tax planning
Maximize Tax Deductions as a Business Owner with AI
Artificial Intelligence
ai in marketing with 3D rendering
Marketers Use AI to Take Advantage of 3D Rendering
Artificial Intelligence
How Big Data Is Transforming the Maritime Industry
How Big Data Is Transforming the Maritime Industry
Big Data
Aa
SmartData Collective
Aa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Uncategorized > Marketing a book, country by country
Uncategorized

Marketing a book, country by country

StephenBaker1
Last updated: 2010/01/16 at 5:35 PM
StephenBaker1
9 Min Read
SHARE

About a year ago, a book showed up at my house. It was Die Numerati, the German translation of The Numerati. The cover featured a dark image of swirling sharks. I stared at it, wondering what those creatures signaled. Then I went to the computer and got a translation of the subtitle, Datenhaie und ihre geheimen Machenschaften: …”data sharks and their secret machinations….”

Oh, I thought. That kind of shark.

German Numerati cover

It’s a strange thing to propose a book, sell it, and then watch what happens to it in different places. My book, it turns out, has given me access to a highly focused global laboratory for marketing and design. Each publisher has its own angle, and each version is created with a different home market in mind. …quot;Meet the Numerati,…quot; warns the Brazilian edition. …quot;They already know you….quot; The publisher of the British paperback, the Mariner division of Random House, gave it a new and slightly menacing title (They’ve Got Your Number…). Its U.S. counterpart, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, focuses instead on utility. Its cover blurb from Wired editor Chris Anderson trumpets a …quot;must-read for anyone who wants to …

More Read

understand the difference between fact tables and dimension tables

Data Driven Companies Must Understand Differences Between Fact Tables & Dimension Tables

Top 10 Powerful Data Modeling Tools For 2021
6 Amazing Cloud Based Data Modeling Tools to Try in 2017
Data Design Is Not Optional
Final Jeopardy- Stephen Baker’s quest to know everything


About a year ago, a book showed up at my house. It was Die Numerati, the German translation of The Numerati.
The cover featured a dark image of swirling sharks. I stared at it,
wondering what those creatures signaled. Then I went to the computer
and got a translation of the subtitle, Datenhaie und ihre geheimen Machenschaften: …”data sharks and their secret machinations….”

Oh, I thought. That kind of shark.

German Numerati cover

It’s a strange thing to propose a book, sell it, and then watch what
happens to it in different places. My book, it turns out, has given me
access to a highly focused global laboratory for marketing and design.
Each publisher has its own angle, and each version is created with a
different home market in mind. …quot;Meet the Numerati,…quot; warns the Brazilian
edition. …quot;They already know you….quot; The publisher of the British
paperback, the Mariner division of Random House, gave it a new and
slightly
menacing title (They’ve Got Your Number…). Its U.S. counterpart,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, focuses instead on utility. Its cover blurb
from Wired editor Chris Anderson trumpets a …quot;must-read for anyone who
wants to understand life and business in the Google Age…..;quot

Baker_NUMERATI - U.S. edition

The changes began shortly after selling the proposal, nearly four years ago. The original pitch was for a book called The Age of Numbers.
It would describe the analysis of the oceans of digital data we all
produce, and how this process would reshape history. I wrote:

Abacus and slate. Numbers and
words. It was a neat divide for nearly 3,000 years. But the border
between the two worlds is fast vanishing. Mathematicians are gaining
the tools to turn the entire universe of knowledge–words, sounds, even images–into symbols. As they do, their domain extends into industries far beyond the ancient divide.

Weeks after Houghton Mifflin bought the book, I got a call from my
editor, Amanda Cook. She told me that she had read again through the
proposal, and she had a suggestion. …quot;I think the whole book is in
Chapter Four,…quot; she said. Originally, I had planned to explore much of
the world of math. My research would even take me to India, where I
would compare how students were learning it there to what my sister was
teaching in Portland, OR. But Amanda saw the entire book as …quot;the
mathematical modeling of humanity….quot; We could have chapters, she
suggested, on how we were modeled and predicted as workers, shoppers,
patients, potential terrorists, and lovers. It sounded fine to
me–though I was sorry to lose the trip to India.

Amanda went on. …quot;Do you think The Age of Numbers is the
best title?…quot; she asked. Clearly, she didn’t. My title, she said, was
fine for selling the proposal to a publisher, but perhaps too static to
attract browsers mulling about a Barnes …amp; Noble store or clicking
through Amazon. The Age of Numbers, she said, evoked Greek columns and would likely scare off the general-interest readers we had our sights on.

Instead we settled on The Numerati. It brought to mind a
global elite (which readers are said to find appealing), with a hint of
intrigue. It recalled the Illuminati of the best-selling DaVinci Code.
(Practically anything that connects a book in readers’ minds to a
bestseller is desirable.)

The British publisher, the Jonathan Cape imprint of Random House,
wasn’t so crazy about the new title. They finally relented, but
insisted on addressing the hot-button privacy issue with the subtitle:
…quot;They’ve Got My Number and Yours….quot;

numerati british cover, hardback
Cover draft 100609

During this period, I gave a lot of thought to subtitles. One friend in
publishing suggesting incorporating one or two of the following words:
Masterminds, Shadowy, Fraternal, New Order, Enlightened, Mystical,
Secret. I tried a couple. …quot;Can the Global Math Elite Predict Your Next
Move?…quot; or …quot;How a New Order of Masterminds is Mapping Your Next Moves
and Changing How You Work, Shop, Vote, and Play……quot;

But the editors at Houghton chose to omit the subtitle. They feared it
might cheapen or pigeonhole the book. To attract readers attention,
they designed a shiny white cover with metallic lettering. Half of a
worried face composed of math code looked up toward those shiny
letters, as if they were wired with secret cameras. The only written
guidance came from Chris Anderson’s Google quote. To give the book a
little viral boost, we inserted some code into the art, and gave a
signed copy to the first readers to uncover it. (It was the geo-location of the Starbucks in New Jersey where I wrote most of the book.)

It was last summer that the British
surprised me with the suggestion of changing the title. …quot;We…rsquo;ve been thinking carefully about where in the market to place the paperback, in relation to the current affairs and business market that the hardback was aimed at, and we plan to target the popular science market more,…quot; an editor wrote…….quot;The title needs to be very punchy to catch the eye of the casual browser. The team here really like the title …ldquo;They…rsquo;ve Got Your Number…hellip;…rdquo;, derived from the subtitle to the hardback. If we go with this title, we…rsquo;d need a short subtitle to explain further what the book is about …ndash; intriguing and urgent enough to make the reader turn over to read the blurb….quot;

I went along. These people know a lot more about selling in books in
Britain than I do. But I asked them to retain …quot;Numerati…quot; in the
subtitle. Otherwise people might take it for a different book….nbsp; They
settled on: Data, Digits and Destiny — How the Numerati are Changing our Lives.

I’m especially curious about the Italian
edition, to be published by Mondadori. While …quot;Numerati…quot; is a made-up
word in every other language, it actually means something–…quot;the
numbered ones…quot;–in Italian. I asked the Italian translator how she was
going to handle it. …quot;
Since the word
Numerati is frequently used in the text,…quot; she wrote, …quot;I think they’ll keep my
translation, which is… no translation at all!…quot;

Whatever works, I say.

Numerati cover Chinese (taiwan)

Spanish cover for The Numerati

Link to original post

TAGGED: data modeling, the numerati
StephenBaker1 January 16, 2010
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

ai software development
Key Strategies to Develop AI Software Cost-Effectively
Artificial Intelligence
ai in omnichannel marketing
AI is Driving Huge Changes in Omnichannel Marketing
Artificial Intelligence
ai for small business tax planning
Maximize Tax Deductions as a Business Owner with AI
Artificial Intelligence
ai in marketing with 3D rendering
Marketers Use AI to Take Advantage of 3D Rendering
Artificial Intelligence

Stay Connected

1.2k Followers Like
33.7k Followers Follow
222 Followers Pin

You Might also Like

understand the difference between fact tables and dimension tables
Big Data

Data Driven Companies Must Understand Differences Between Fact Tables & Dimension Tables

5 Min Read
data modeling tools to analyze
Modeling

Top 10 Powerful Data Modeling Tools For 2021

8 Min Read
data-modeling-tools
Modeling

6 Amazing Cloud Based Data Modeling Tools to Try in 2017

4 Min Read
data modeling
Best PracticesBig DataCRMData ManagementITPolicy and Governance

Data Design Is Not Optional

4 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

ai is improving the safety of cars
From Bolts to Bots: How AI Is Fortifying the Automotive Industry
Artificial Intelligence
ai in ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence for eCommerce: A Closer Look
Artificial Intelligence

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US

© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?