Some interesting stats on books from [a href="vny!://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm"]ParaPublishing[/a]. In my opinion, a lot of these stats are really sad.
[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"]Who is Reading Books (and who is not)
33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
--Jerrold Jenkins.
[a href="vny!://www.JenkinsGroup.com"]vny!://www.JenkinsGroup.com[/a]
Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
63% of adults report purchasing at least one book during the previous three-month period. (Most were probably exaggerating).
--Bookselling This Week, November 10, 1997.
[a href="vny!://news.bookweb.org/"]vny!://news.bookweb.org/[/a]
53% read fiction, 43% nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery & Suspense, 19%.
--Publishers Weekly, May 12, 1997, page 13.
[a href="vny!://www.PublishersWeekly.com"]vny!://www.PublishersWeekly.com[/a]
Of the top fifty books, fiction outsells nonfiction about 60% to 40%. Fiction peaks in July at 70% but nonfiction reaches almost 50% in December.
--USA Today, April 30, 1999.
[a href="vny!://www.USAtoday.com"]vny!://www.USAtoday.com[/a]
55% of fiction is bought by women; 45% by men.
--Publishers Weekly, May 12, 1997, page 13.
Thirty percent of Americans surveyed by the Harris Poll say they would rather read a book than do anything else; twenty-one percent said watching TV is their favorite activity. That's the good news. The bad news is that only 13 percent selected "spending time with family.
--Publishers Weekly email Daily, July 9, 1998.
[a href="vny!://www.PublishersWeekly.com"]vny!://www.PublishersWeekly.com[/a]
Each day, people in the US spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
--Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment bankers
[a href="vny!://www.veronissuhler.com"]vny!://www.veronissuhler.com[/a]
70% of Americans haven't visited a bookstore in five (5) years.
--Michael Levine, June 2002
[a href="vny!://www.LevinPR.com"]vny!://www.LevinPR.com[/a]
Customers 55 and older account for more than one-third of all books bought.
--2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group,
[a href="vny!://www.bisg.org"]vny!://www.bisg.org[/a]
People reduced their time reading between 1996 and 2001 to 2.1 hours/month.
2001: per capita spending on books per month was $7.18.
--Publishers Weekly, May 26, 2003
[a href="vny!://www.PublishersWeekly.com"]vny!://www.PublishersWeekly.com[/a]
Only 32% of the U.S. population has ever been in a bookstore.
--David Godine, Publisher.
The time Americans spend reading books.
1996: 123 hours
2001: 109 hours
--Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment bankers
[a href="vny!://www.veronissuhler.com"]vny!://www.veronissuhler.com[/a]
