Macmillan is developing a dashboard called Next Big Book. The tool compiles sales, publicity, events, social media, web traffic and other data daily to help marketers track how a book is doing and which factors are providing the biggest impacts.

Macmillan plans to provide the dashboard to all its authors and agents within the next three months. Let’s hope other publishers take a similar path to put control back in the hands of the folks who care most about books: the people who wrote them.