A survey conducted by an advertising firm at the end of last year seeks to give us a picture of book buying in America. I can’t vouch for the statistical validity of the internet-based survey, which had 2,200 respondents, It claims to have a 1.5 percent margin of error.
So what did the survey results show?
- Avid readers (those who buy 10 or more books a year) tend to be female (64%), wealthier and better educated. Estimated to constitute about 70 million people, the avid readers represent 30.2% of the U.S. adult population.
- Older Americans (45 and older) represent 60% of the avid book-buyers.
- The principal reason avid readers buy a book is entertainment/relaxation (32%) followed by education/self-improvement (22%).
- Ereader owners have reached 15.8 percent, more than double what the survey showed a year ago. Among avid readers, that rises to 22.3 percent.
- There is, though, still strong resistance to ereaders. Some 52% percent of those surveyed and 49.7% of avid readers said it was “not at all likely” that they would buy an ereader this year.
- Ereader and tablet owners plan to buy as many print books as e-books in the coming year.
- When it comes to ebook piracy (downloading a book via a bit torrent site), 43.5 percent of ebook reader and tablet owners surveyed said they’ve done so. That rises to 56.5% among males between 18 and 34 — I’m guessing more than a handful of the 15.9% who said “Prefer not to answer” have probably done so.
- Somehow 10.6% of ereader and tablet owners surveyed “don’t know” if they’ve downloaded an ebook from a bit torrent site. Yeah, right.
The difficulty is that publishers who can market are most often not the publishers with worthy lists.
Olivia Goldsmith, The Bestseller
