Making big waves

New AI tool set to revolutionize the book market

The "Demandsens" tool should be able to create precise sales forecasts for the first time.

(Bild: Kara - stock.adobe.com)

It is an announcement that is making waves. Some see diversity in the book market in danger. Small publishers could come under pressure, lesser-known authors could have their career plans scuppered and editors could look for a new job, they say. The "Süddeutsche Zeitung" headlines an article on the subject with "The atomic bomb".

The trigger is the announcement by market research company Media Control that, together with its partner BearingPoint, it will provide a tool based on artificial intelligence (AI) that can use machine learning algorithms to create precise sales forecasts for the first time - "long before sales actually take place".

In a test phase, the "Demandsens" tool had an average accuracy rate of 82%, and even between 95% and 99% for individual product groups, according to the Baden-Baden-based company.

Five billion pieces of data swirled through in 1.3 seconds
The tool is expected to be available during the first quarter of 2025, Managing Director Ulrike Altig told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Among other things, it works with figures on sales, returns and pre-orders, master data such as author and title, keywords provided by publishers, reading motives and findings from social media analyses, Altig explained to Deutschlandfunk radio. "All of this data together - that's currently five billion pieces of data that are whirled through in 1.3 seconds - provides the basis for the possibility of AI forecasting."

"Demandsens" will then predict sales figures for new books as accurately as possible for publishers, retailers and industry representatives. Consumers should not be able to use it. A business management tool, in other words. Altig does not provide details on the weighting of the criteria and the algorithms. "What we can emphasize, however, is that Media Control has a unique data basis that is optimally combined with modern AI algorithms to achieve the best forecasting results."

What the company sees as a strength worries some observers: Media Control can use data from more than 9,000 sales outlets and, according to its own information, has the most informative book retail panel in the German-speaking world with a market coverage of 88%. This is the basis for the German book charts, for example, on which the "Börsenblatt" bestseller lists are based "as the official organ of the book industry".

In cooperation with TikTok, Media Control also compiles a monthly ranking list of the 20 most successful book titles discussed on the platform, known as #BookTok. This knowledge is also incorporated into "Demandsens".

Industry reacts cautiously
From the point of view of book scientist Christoph Bläsi, however, there is no cause for concern. Even before AI, the concept for success in the literary industry was to focus on something that sells well. "Publishers are commercial enterprises," says the professor at the University of Mainz. "If something works, it will be driven through the village."

Statements from the industry are correspondingly cautious: according to a spokeswoman, the bookseller Hugendubel is not currently planning to use "Demandsens". Suhrkamp-Verlag points out that it is not yet familiar with the software in detail. Other publishers emphasize that they have their own applications with which they create forecasts.

Bläsi sees advantages with AI in terms of sustainability. The number of returns is likely to be reduced if booksellers can accurately predict whether ten or twenty copies are more likely to be sold. It would also be possible to analyze whether a work is better received in large cities, for example, or primarily in southern Germany. AI could also be interesting in order to see more quickly which trends are emerging in social networks, for example.

Expert: No reason for alarm
If a development is "more of the same" - i.e. more of the same - this could even meet the needs of readers. The 2018 study "Book buyers - quo vadis?" by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (GfK) came to the conclusion, among other things, that people do not find sufficient orientation on the book market and that there is a lack of exchange about books. Unlike popular Netflix series, for example, there are hardly any book titles that people talk about, explains Bläsi.

Independent publishers could find themselves in a predicament, the expert admits. "They are more confident about bringing something offstream to the market." However, there are also book prizes, which often focus on lesser-known authors or niche topics and drive up sales. He therefore sees nothing alarming.

Altig also says that Media Control is only concerned with efficiency and data - not content. Publishers could supplement the "Demandsens" forecasts with their own knowledge. It is also their aim to generate new readers again and again and not just concentrate on bestsellers, but to offer a variety. Media Control has nothing to do with content, but specializes exclusively in numbers.