Friday, July 27, 2012

UNDERSTANDING THE ROMANCE BUYER IN THE DIGITAL AGE : RWA 2012

Bowker Market Research tracks 6000 unique book buyers every month. Track what they buy, what formats, where and why they buy books, who they buy them for. In what formats is romance bought? 44% ebook, 29% mass market, 17% trade paperback Publisher share - concentrated among key publisaers Macmillan 32%, 23% harlequin, 17% penguin
Avid readers read 15 print 8 ebooks every 6 months. they buy 12 print anf 7 ebooks. Frequent readers read 7 print, 2 ebook and buy 5 print and 2 ebook in the same period Romance readers are buying less frequently: in early 2011 30% were buying every 2-3 weeks, now it is 23%
Romance readers are more price sensitive than other readers Romance readers are more impulsive in their buying practices than readers of other genres What do romance buyers most enjoy about reading romance *relaxation *escapism *happy endings *hope *light/easy reads *character association *uplifting *feel-good
What influences readers - enjoying previous books(71%), part of a series(65%), blurb (57%), title (51%) What is on the seller website has the most impact. Facebook, Twitter, blogs are less influential.
40% of readers WILL visit your author website, 15% read your blog This holiday season (2011) was a game changer in terms of how people buy books.  Device - 41% kindle, 13% kindle fire, 16% Nook, 10% iPad, 4% iPhone
The impact of free books - 30% bought another book by that author. 14% say they only read free ebooks

1 comment:

Slick said...

As a reader and buyer, I’m going to respond to this. For me 99.9% of all my book purchases regardless of genre are ebook. I will occasionally buy a print book if I liked it and want the author to sign it. But that’s a very rare occurrence. Publishers, I buy mostly from Samhain, but I do buy from Harlequin, Evernight, Silver, Turquoise Morning Press and a few others. I ONLY but from Penguin when I am forced to because an author I adore is published with them. I HATE buying from them because I feel their ebooks are way over priced! The whole avid reader statement….those aren’t avid readers…I am an avid reader! I buy about 5 books a week and read about 10 books a week (the other 5 being books I’m given for review). I buy more now that I did but I can understand the fall off in sales, everything in our lives is more expensive and sometimes “extras” like books take a beating. You bet romance readers are more price sensitive, because most are women and we always treat ourselves to extras last. I resent the impulsive remark; I make my selections very carefully. I pretty much agree with “the romance readers most enjoy about reading romance” but I’d also add I enjoy reading steamy sex scenes! What influences readers, my number one is the author, part of a series, synopsis, and book cover. I disagree with the statement that what is on the seller website has the most impact, most of the time I hear about releases and books through Facebook and review site blogs, but Facebook is my number one contact. I don’t have time to visit every blog, website, publisher page, etc….a quick blurb and link on Facebook will get my attention. As for how I buy books 100% Kindle all the way baby! Impact of free books, I can’t even tell you how many free books have cost me a lot of money. Because if I read the first book in a series, there is no way I’m not going to finish it. Or if I read a free book by an author I’ve never read before and it’s good, I’ll go and buy every one of her books.