Tag Archive - Trends

E-Book Buyers Buy More Books

November 18, 2010 in Business, E-Books, Trends with 15 Comments

New research by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has made some interesting discoveries.

  • E-book consumers say they are buying more books overall, but fewer in print, and are decreasing their total dollars spent
  • More than 40% of e-book readers have reduced the number and dollars spent on hardcovers and paperbacks.
  • Retailers are becoming more important than publishers as a source of information about e-books.
  • General fiction and mysteries are the fastest-growing e-book genres.
  • More respondents received e-readers as gifts than bought them for themselves.
  • Respondents who bought devices for themselves most often were motivated by suggestions from friends.
  • The iPad has only a marginal impact on the popularity of the Kindle and Nook.
  • Heavy to moderate book buyers want e-devices that don’t have a lot of other options.
  • The iPad may bring new and light e-book buyers into the market.

The full November 17, 2010 BISG press release can be found here.

It will be very interesting to read their findings a year from now. In the next year we will see a veritable flood of “Tablet” devices and more dedicated E-Readers. Plus it is highly likely there will be an iPad 2.0.

I carry my Kindle when traveling and really appreciate the convenience. Transferring documents via wi-fi makes it ideal. I’ve even uploaded all of my speeches and teaching notes, just in case I forget to bring the correct file folder…a backup. In addition I’ve stopped traveling with a laptop. My Droid smartphone provides access to everything I need (in most cases). And now Carbonite (www.carbonite.com) allows for remote access to any files backed up on the office computer, so any file can be retrieved at any time, anywhere. My oldest brother, on the other hand, loves his iPad.

Do you have a e-reader device, other than a smart phone or a laptop? If so, which one, and how do you use it?

Harris Poll Surprises Authors

October 7, 2010 in Publishing, Trends with 15 Comments

Today the Harris Poll released the results of a survey of America’s Reading Habits. Every writer should read the article and think about the big picture.

The Harris Poll Article

I normally eschew poll results. The sampling is always so small to proclaim far reaching pronouncements about whatever topic is at hand. In this case there were only 2,775 participants.

Regardless, I found it fascinating that the Mystery/Thriller genre was named the number one choice for reading. The general rule of thumb is that Romance is the #1 genre. We could argue that one all day long.

But more instructive is the fact that the #5 favorite author is Tom Clancy who has not had a new novel in half a decade! (His new novel Dead or Alive is coming out in December.) Thus the respondents were not necessarily naming the authors they are currently reading. For me, this shed some doubt on how knowledgeable the consumer is. This mean readers tend, like we all do, to focus on the “brand name.”

Another intriguing piece of the survey is that 57% of women read Mystery/Thriller versus only 39% of the men. Try telling that to most publishers…

Men choose Science Fiction (32%) more than women (20%). At least this stat tracks most marketing assumptions.

And concerning Non-Fiction it is interesting that Religion (26% of all respondents) is a more popular as a topic than Politics (17%). That isn’t necessarily reflected in the bestsellers lists! The number one non-fiction category was History followed by Biography and then Religion.

I am very curious to hear what your observations are when you view this poll. Does it reflect your reading patterns? What about the habits of your friends, neighbors, or church members?

Are there any implications for the publishing industry? or is this simply something to be ignored?

Changes in Culture

August 17, 2010 in Trends, Writing with 12 Comments

Every year Beloit College creates a “Mindset List” which reflects the culture that the incoming Freshman class have grown up experiencing. It helps their faculty know how to relate to these incoming students. Click here for this year’s Mindset List.

I download this list every year and read it with increasing wonder at the speed of our cultural changes.

The college graduating class of 2014 was born in 1992. Think about that for a second. If you are a writer, you can no longer assume that your audience will understand your cultural references. In a mere six years, today’s 18-year-olds will be adults…possibly with families and jobs and children…they will be reading your books and articles.

And you will only be six years older than you are now.

Think about it …

For the class of 2014 Czechoslovakia has never existed.
For the class of 2014 Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.
For the class of 2014 Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

There are 72 other observations in this year’s list.

Earlier lists illustrate things even more dramatically.

For this generation of future readers:

MTV has never featured music videos.
They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears.
Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves.
The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.
They have never seen “Magic” Johnson play an NBA basketball game since he has always been HIV-positive
They have grown up with bottled water.
Google has become a verb.
Smoking has never been allowed on a US airplane flight
Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling

It also dawned on me that, for these incoming Freshman, 9/11 happened when they were nine years old. Pause for a moment and try to remember what major world changing event occurred when you were nine or ten? Then ask if it really changed the way you saw the world. Of course it didn’t…you were nine. (For me it was the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the same year, 1968.) Your parents were effected but you weren’t, at least not as much. This means we have a new generation of readers who were only tangentially affected by 9/11.

So, the next time you visualize the audience to which you are writing, realize that they don’t think like you, process information like you, or see the world the same way you do.

With all this change it is comforting to know that our Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

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