According to the study, the respondents were drawn from two sources:
The readers were classified as avid (37% said they are almost always reading a mystery), frequent (51% said they often read mysteries) and occasional (12% said they sometimes read mysteries).The study "used PubTrack™ Consumer’s monthly panel of U.S. book buying men, women and teens, balanced to US Census ... Respondents were drawn from a pool of 75,000 survey respondents who bought a book in 2009 and the first half of2010. The survey was given to a broad range of mystery readers, notjust seriously involved mystery fans."
In addition, "Sisters in Crime provided a supplemental contact list from mystery bookstores."
Not surprisingly, the gender of readers breaks heavily female (65%) to male (36%).
I'll confess to being a bit surprised at the age spread. Seventy-one percent (71%) of the readers were over 50 years old while only 15% were in their 40's and 14% were 39 years old or under. The bottom line here is that seven out of ten of the readers were over 45.
Where the books came from was interesting:
- 19% of all readers acquire mysteries at libraries
- 11% of all mysteries are sold through book clubs such as Mystery Guild
- 39% of all mysteries are purchased in stores
E-book sales are growing fast. In 2009, 1.7% of books sold were e-books. In Q2 of 2010, 7% of books sold were e-books.
Another interesting element was the reason why the readers selected a particular mystery to read:- 53% chose a specific mystery because they liked the author
- 39% liked the series
- 29% liked a character
- 21% liked the subject or topic
- 16% liked the price
The survey makes for interesting reading. Go here to see the whole survey.
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