Random House Zogby International Survey of Readers Reveals and Confirms Buying/Reading Habits
By Jane • Jun 19th, 2008 • Category: Publishing News • •Random House employed Zogby International to do a survey of over 8000 readers. Only 15% of the readership seems interested in ebooks which is good for the brick and mortar retailers. Other interesting tidbits:
- Most readers buy by the cover (no surprise).
- Nearly half of readers shop at independents.
- 66% percent of online purchasers buy from Amazon versus 10% from Barnes and Noble.
- 62% browse online for books with 31% depending on online reviews.
- 60% rely on suggestions of family and friends and 49% on book reviews.
The entire survey and results can be read here.
Via Teleread.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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Does BooksAMillion.com have such a small percentage share that they didn’t get mentioned or was that a distinction you made?
I buy (again, fell of the wagon for a while and went to the dark side) pretty much all my books at Bamm.com since there are no bookstores within 60 miles of us. Their prices are the best (discounts on paperbacks) and their 10% off club membership fee is much lower than B&N.
I’m very happy with them and I hope nobody will tell me anything bad about them! :)
[...] June 19, 2008 · No Comments despite typos and a lack of information regarding the demographics of respondents and full methodology (apparently not made public), Random House commissioned an online survey of readers that is worth a quick read. a couple of questions not asked: do you prefer to buy online or at a brick and mortar store (sort of implied by the question of “Where do you most often buy books,” pg. 4, in which online is at 43%) and if 62% of respondents are browsing online without a specific book in mind, pg. 7, what guides them? also, if the most sold genre is romance and only 7% of respondents are buying this genre online, pg. 5, does that mean that most are buying at brick and mortar, getting them from the library, e-book viewing, or….? not quite sure what the “with passport” and “without passport” distinction means, pg. 9, perhaps a reference to citizenship? the reference to “residents of planet earth,” pg. 9, made me question the authenticity of the survey, but it does seem to be legit. via Dear Author. [...]
Books a Million was 6% on the survey.
I thought this bit was really interesting . . .