Bowker has released a new report that analyzes the book buying habits of American consumers. Taking information gathered from an online panel of 11,933 respondents that provided weekly updates on all matters of book buying, the 2008 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics & Buying Behaviors Annual Report details not only what consumers are buying but where and why as well. Some of the findings confirm long-held industry beliefs while others shed new light on what is happening in the market.
Women, for example, bought 65% of all trade books in 2008, a percentage that may be higher than believed by most in the industry, but not a huge surprise. A much more surprising finding is that the vast majority of books are bought by consumers in households earning less than $75,000. Forty-one percent of books in 2008 were bought by readers in households earning $35,000, while another 36% were bought by consumers in households with income between $35,000 and $75,000. The report, produced in collaboration with PW, also confirmed the growing importance of the Internet as a sales and marketing channel as well as the clout of Amazon.com. The Internet accounted for 23% of units sold in 2008, just beating out the major bookstore chains, which had a 22% market share. When the chains are added to independent and religion bookstores, brick-and-mortar bookstores combined to account for 30% of book purchases last year. The edge online retailers hold over traditional booksellers is also reflected in the particular outlet consumers reported buying their books from, with Amazon accounting for 14% of purchases, tops among all book outlets, compared to Barnes & Noble, which held a 12.5% share of the market.
The Internet is not only selling more books than ever but playing a larger role in making consumers aware of books. Twenty-one percent of book buyers said they became aware of a book through some sort of online promotion or ad compared to 16% of buyers reporting they learned of a book through traditional sources. Online marketing was especially important in fiction, where the gap between online and traditional was 21% to 13%.
Using data gathered from the panel, the report found that the author and topic/subject were the top two reasons consumers buy a book. There are significant differences in motivation, however, in what prompts consumers to buy books in different categories. Among buyers of fiction, 28% of readers said they chose a book because of the author, with only 9% citing the topic/subject. The exact opposite response was found among nonfiction buyers.
While women buy more paperback, hardcover and spoken-word audio books than men, men bought more e-books in 2008, accounting for 55% of purchases. That trend continued into the first quarter of 2009, with men accounting for 57% of e-book purchases; 52% of e-book buyers in the first period were between ages 18 and 34. And e-book sales, which accounted for only 0.6% of consumer book purchases in 2008, represented 2.4% of purchases in the first quarter of 2009.
In developing the PubTrack program and in creating the annual report, Kelly Gallagher, v-p of Bowker Publisher Services, said the company is looking to bring formal consumer research to examining the book marketplace, adding that now “the publishing industry can look beyond the bestseller lists and into the minds and needs of their consumers.”
For information on how to order the report, contact Natalie Piccotti at 908-219-0114 or Natalie.piccotti@bowker.com.
