Ali Albazaz, founder and CEO of Inkitt
Last month Bloomberg ran a story on Inkitt, highlighting Inkitt’s revolutionary approach to book publishing. Inkitt (Redalpine Capital III) uses online reading behavior for publishing decisions. With its proprietary algorithm, Inkitt analyses a wealth of data based on the reading behavior around any given story, including reading engagement, re-engagement, sharing and the reading behavior of new readers who come through their friends.
The Bloomberg story re-iterates the inefficiencies of current publishing decisions that have best-selling books often being rejected multiple times initially. In the conversation with Bloomberg, Ali Albazaz, CEO and founder of Inkitt, points out that “the decision-making by big publishing houses can be very random and they tend to favor established authors.” As a consequence, Inkitt’s model is well suited for discovering new authors: “Discovering the next J.K. Rowling, the next Stephen King is what we strive for.”
Finally, the author points out both opportunities and challenges for Inkitt in the publishing market. In particular in the print market, the company has to compete against the publicity prowess of established publishers. But succeeding in this big market comes with high rewards. And Inkitt is taking the next steps with hiring for their New York office, expanding into non-fiction titles and aiming at department stores to sell its books.
For the full story, please check out Bloomberg.