Value to the Reader: Chameleon Survey Results

[Amy]

OK, we have over 110 responses to the writer survey now. The survey was the first of three we will do, and we know it was the "easy one" for us. The second will be with vendors (booksellers, librarians) and the third will be with regular and occasional readers. We don't have too many illusions these are going to be easy, but intend to do in-person interviews also, which will help ongoing.

Everyone on Goodreads just about is one of the regular readers and book-buyers (some 70 million in North America).

Who we are, and where we are at, is something like Whole Foods in 1980. Whole Foods founder John Mackey and his partners were living in the grocery and taking showers out back with a hose. He had just finished working with a series of three organic food co-ops and figured "there's got to be a better way" and he believed customers wanted to buy healthy, organic, natural foods and other products.

Not everyone buys this type of food today, but it is the fastest-growing segment of the food industry and Whole Foods continues to grow, add stores and increase sales every year.

Well, now it's time for books.

http://www.amysterlingcasil.com/books...

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

That's an interesting post.

(Gotta love quotes from author Ursula K. Le Guin--she does have a way with words!)

I was a bit surprised at the chart of readers with columns for media (print, ebook, audio) not showing some bigger jumps in audiobooks and ebooks among a couple of age groups and genders.

Many "soccer moms" with small children seem to spend a heck of a lot of time chauffeuring or lined up in stalled vehicles with other moms picking up and dropping off their little darlings. Moms who definitely listen to audiobooks in their vehicles. Maybe because a lot of them also get those audiobooks from the public library rather than buying where those sales would show up on book industry statistics.

So that gender in an age group likely to have school age children I would have expected to show more audiobook usage.

With the large print capability of ebooks, I would have thought those would have been more attractive to the over 40 than the chart indicated...