Re:The publishing industry has a gambling problem
by colechristensen on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @06:15PM
(#45509608)
Recommendation systems are just bad across the board.
Audible says "You liked this John Scalzi book? Here's every other Scalzi book as a recommendation! Also a few other very popular books which are almost exactly the same as the one you just read!"
Amazon says "You just bought a hammer, here are 37 more hammers in case you want another one!"
Why yes, I do like books with spaceships in them, but maybe I want to see more than the next 20 most popular books with spaceships in them...
Recommendation engines fail by failing to make connections that aren't in the immediate neighborhood.
Re:The publishing industry has a gambling problem
by WillAdams on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @10:35PM
(#45511437)
I've found that:
https://www.literature-map.com/
works well for authors whose books sell well enough to be listed there.
Re:The publishing industry has a gambling problem
by boznz on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @12:28AM
(#45512073)
The algorithm is your enemy, not your friend.
Re:The publishing industry has a gambling problem
by carlosjobim on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @09:32AM
(#45515996)
It doesn't have to be an algorithm, it could be recommendations by real people. But I haven't found any such system which is as extensive as music or video recommendations.
The best way to discover books is when they are mentioned in other good books, but this does nothing for new books.
A book recommendation system will need to have access to full-text search within the books to work well. That will solve the problem.