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The Lure of a Good Book: Who's Reading What? [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Lure of a Good Book: Who's Reading What? [INFOGRAPHIC]
When you're curled up with a good book that you just can't set aside, whether it's a physical book or an ebook, do you know what makes it so compelling? Is it the mystery, the suspense? Maybe it's the romance. Turns out men and women have very different habits when it comes to picking a good book. This data is from HipType, a company that gathers analytics data from e-readers for authors. For this infographic, the company studied the DNA of a successful book as well as the reading habits of men and women, and found that women are 50% more likely to finish a book than men. If you're a fan of ebooks, you likely live in a city. Check out the infographic below and let us know if these findings reflect your reading habits as well. Infographic courtesy HipType; thumbnail image courtesy iStockphoto, theasis

How Ebook Buyers Discover Books Most writers write to get read, so how do readers discover ebooks? To discover clues to the answer, I posted a survey over at Mobileread, the online forum popular with many ebook readers. I challenged readers to select the single most common criterion they follow to discover their next read. The results provide some interesting data points Smashwords authors and publishers might consider in their marketing efforts. To capture a broad range of usable data, I suggested 12 answers, one of which was "Other." As of this writing, 206 people answered the survey. Key findings, plus my observations: 1. What to make of the results? Digital Age Discoverability: Recommendations and Bookstores Jack McKeown presenting the results of Verso Digital's reader survey at Digital Book World. Community Note: Throughout February, we’ll be sharing some of the best speakers and sessions from Digital Book World Conference. Keep checking Digital Book World for more. Want more video and audio from digital publishing’s premier event? We’re currently uploading all of the sessions to our members archive. If you’re not a member yet, you can join the community for only $99 a year. How do people discover books in the digital age? According to a recent survey, presented at the Digital Book World conference in New York last week, nearly half of readers discover new books through the recommendations of family and friends, and nearly a third discover them at bookstores. How will readers discover, buy and read new books as e-reader and tablet ownership increase and traditional books sales channels are challenged? Related Posts: No Related Posts Found

How do people discover new books and authors? — Chocolate and Vodka Last month I put together a brief survey to find out how people find new books and authors. One of the biggest challenges facing new authors, regardless of whether they are self-published or going with a traditional publisher, is getting the word out about their work. Increasingly, authors are having to do a significant amount of legwork in terms of promotion as marketing and advertising budgets are slashed, whether we like it or not. The trouble is, most self-published authors don’t have a particularly detailed understanding of their market. So I thought I’d start my own journey towards understanding by asking people where they find out about new books and authors. Question 1: What genres of fiction do you enjoy reading? The first question asked people to rate how often they read particular genres. Question 2: Where do you find about about new books and new authors? The second question asked people to rate how frequently they found new books or authors via different methods.

Blog Post: How do books get discovered? A guide for publishers and authors who want their books to find an audience Posted by Patrick on February 17, 2012 We've all fallen under the spell of a truly great book. But where did we originally hear about it? How did we come to choose that particular book from among the literally millions of books in the world? From the publisher's perspective, discovery has always been shrouded in mystery, a sort of alchemical process through which readers find books they love. What we found is that readers discover books in several different ways. Below is a pie chart of the various methods Goodreads members use to find books on the site: One of the biggest things we learned—or should we say confirmed—is the power of word of mouth. Some of the methods for finding books, such as the registration process for Goodreads, favor very popular books. Our Goodreads Recommendation Engine has been incredibly successful since we launched it last September. As you can see, most Goodreads members get book recommendations from their friends, either on Goodreads or off. Happy reading!

Are Teens Embracing E-books? A recent PubTrak survey from R.R. Bowker indicated that teens remain reluctant when it comes to e-books. Accustomed to social media, they find that electronic stories have “too many restrictions,” according to the report. But many industry players—agents, booksellers, publishers, and authors—are saying just the opposite: digital sales are booming for YA fiction. As evidence, over the recent holiday season Barnes & Noble sold five times as many YA e-titles as print ones online, says Jim Hilt, v-p of e-books for the chain. As for the dreaded cannibalization of print, it does not appear to be happening in YA. Publishers are waiting for new statistics coming out at the end of this month from Ypulse, the youth market research group, but they expect to see more signs of growth in teen e-commerce. Teenagers are a demographic perfectly poised to consume digital content. "YA e-books are growing even faster than e-books overall in the Kindle Store." And there is plenty of content out there. 1.

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