I'm just trying to imagine how a book like Catcher in the Rye, Finnegans Wake, or To Kill a Mockingbird would have been changed if it were subjected to these sort of analytics by its publisher.

I can easily see future books being edited and re-written from edition to edition (not that "edition" will continue to have any meaning) in response to analytics on reader behavior.

30% of readers failing to finish a book, and dropping off near the same place? Let's rewrite that chapter to keep people turning the pages. Lots of people highlighting a controversial passage, then not buying any more books from that author? Tone it down, smooth out the "problem areas." A surprising number of young women reading a particular book? Let's "pink it up" and throw in some romantic subplots that tested well in focus groups. How about embedding some multimedia into the book, and some product placement while we're at it?

Literature will survive this latest attempt to measure the creativity right out of an industry. Good movies still make it on the indie circuit despite the focus-grouped blockbusters, good games still get made by small shops. I just can't help but feel a tinge of sadness as I watch books and literature get consumed by obsessive measurement and cold-blooded analytics.