Who was reading in 2008
- 45% of Americans read a book
- The average age of those who read a book was 44
- 58% of readers are women
- 32% of readers are over the age of 55
- The average reader spends 5.2 hours reading per week vs. 15 hours online and 13.1 hours watching TV (In 2008, going online surpassed watching TV as a primary activity)
Who was buying books in 2008
- 50% of Americans over 13 bought a book
- The average age of the most frequent book buyers was 50 yrs old
- 57% of book buyers are female and they buy 65% of books (e.g. women buy books and they buy in volume)
- 67% of books are bought by people over 42; Gen X buy 17% of books; Gen Y buys 10%
- Of books purchased by those who earn $100K or more, mystery and detective fiction represent 16%, juvenile 13%, romance 6%, thrillers 4% and comics and graphic novels 4%
- 41% of all books are purchased by those who earn less than $35K
- The average price of a book purchased last year was $10.08
- 31% of all book purchases are impulse buys
Friday, May 15, 2009
Summary of Making Information Pay
Happily I don't have to do this myself because the nice people at Follow The Reader have done this for us. They note some interesting stats from Bowker's book reader panel and link to the other presentations (Post):
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2 comments:
I wonder how much the 41% of books bought by people with incomes below $35k is skewed by textbooks sold to college students. It's potentially misleading since the payment is often subsidized by parents whose income is well above $35k.
41% of all books are purchased by those who earn less than $35K
That is a truly remarkable statistic. Is that counting seniors on fixed incomes? Would that skew the result?
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