Who is the average Goodreads user? You'll be surprised!

The book lovers' website Goodreads.com gets 45 million active visitors a month, so which city delivers the highest number of visitors? If you guessed New York or Chicago...you'll be surprised. It's Jakarta in Indonesia!

Doing research on how to market my Indie novel 'The Vanirim' I came across some occasionally surprising data about who uses Goodreads!

Where do Goodreaders live?

I figured USA of course, and 20 out of 45 million visitors in December came from the US. But the next highest user population was from India and together with Indonesia and the Phillipines made up 7m users!

And New York was only sixth on the list of most readers, well behind Jakarta in Indonesia, Makati in the Phillipines, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune in India.



Do more women than men read books?

The demographics of Goodreads would say so. Women are 40% more likely than average to be active on Goodreads, while men are actually 40% LESS likely to show up. But perhaps women are just more social about their reading ;)

Compared to the 'US average' Goodreaders are also more likely to be aged under 35, have a grad school education and be ethnically Asian.

And here's something weird, Goodreaders are 20x more likely (than the average internet user) to own a van, 8x more likely to own a truck, 3x more likely to own an SUV, than an ordinary car.



What's their favourite TV show?

Ladies, there is something about your man Bear Grylls isn't there? He's got Goodreader's favourite TV show, with Fargo and Hollywood Game night in second and third.

And Hockey is their favourite sport (ice, I assume, not field hockey).



Do they Goodread on a tablet or smart phone, or on their PC?

Slightly more access Goodreads on a mobile device but surprisingly 45% still access the site through a PC. I guess us bookies are still a bit old fashioned...

Where do they work?

Hello sailor! Goodreaders are 2x more likely to be in active military service than the average internet user, and most often the coast guard or airforce. But close on the heels of that employer is the non-profit sector!

And who would have guessed Goodreaders were 4x more likely to be working in agriculture or in the justice system! Long days in the combine harvester, long nights watching prisoners sleep I guess!



Are Goodreaders only interested in books?

Well, no. But mostly interested in books, yes! Their top 2 most visited websites are Kirkus reviews and Publishers Weekly. They also love witty and wise sayings and quotes though because the next three most visited sites are 'brainyquotes', 'searchquotes' and 'wise old sayings'!



Any surprises on their top 20 websites list? Well, their favourite blog is BookRiot so maybe not (but there are a couple of creepy vampire sites in there too!).

Importantly, some of their favourite sites are those where you can read books for FREE (even ahem, copyrighted novels).



Implications for authors

My first takeaway is that with nearly one in six active Goodreaders coming from Asian countries, it's about time we thought about whether our books will work in those markets, in everything from content to cover art.

And if 40% more Goodreaders are females under 35, then Goodreads may be a good place to do your marketing, if that is your target audience, but not if your book is about male midlife crises!

It makes sense to me that sailors and airforce personnel are big readers, but I had never thought of it before. Now I need to better understand whether they are just average readers, or do they look more for high tech thrillers and high seas adventures (probably not, since that is their day job!)

Something else of note, is the number of people accessing FREE TO READ websites, often with user generated content, like Wattpad, or with stolen content. Fiction is like everything on the internet it seems - Free is the New Black.

Only half of the population of Goodreaders access the site through their mobile device, but I'd assumed it was higher. Usually we worry about whether our materials are optimised for mobile, but is my profile and content optimised for PC?

And lastly, if I could just find an Indian hunk who looks like Bear Grylls, driving a van and dressed like a sailor to put on my cover, clearly it wouldn't hurt!

* Disclaimer: this data is based on Quantcast analyses so of course using another analysis service may give different results! You can see their full analysis here:

https://www.quantcast.com/goodreads.com

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