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Coffee Talk ~ With Moira





Romance Writers Of America has an interesting survey on their website.  It's all about romance readers...of course!  I was reading author Matt Hofferth's blog post on Goodreads and had to share his link-up!



What stands out on the survey, to this romance reader, is that the number one way we find new books to read is through word of mouth!  Not that I'm surprised.  I have a close knit circle of women that share my love of all things romance - and we definitely recommend books to one another weekly!  At least half of my reviews come about because a friend suggested I read 'such-and-such-book'. 

My other sources are split between my Book Club, Amazon recommendations, and browsing my local library.  Here's a breakdown...
50% ~ Friend recommendation
16% ~ Amazon suggestion
16% ~ Browsing the library
16% ~ My book club
2%  ~  Ways I have forgotten to mention

Next up, RWA featured a section on percentage of readers who read on e-readers vs. paperbacks.  The results did surprise me here.  I thought e-readers would have higher representation in the stats.  I am split in my habits...

60% ~ Books I read on my Kindle
35% ~ Books I read in paperback

I read a few books on my computer, but stopped quickly.  If I can't get it on my Kindle or in a paperback, I'll pass.  Reading on the computer isn't for me. 

How do you read? 

This survey was limited to romance readers, and although I love, love, love my romances, I read a wide variety of books.  Maybe that skews my comparisons - but I think not.  Factors that most affected purchase I found surprisingly absent or conspicuously low on the survey included cover art, ranking at distribution sites, and social media influences.  I would have guessed those to be more important than they are!


How about you?  Where do your greatest influences come from?  Do you fit in with the majority on RWA's survey?  I hope you found this information as interesting as I did.  Share your thoughts!

Moíra ♣


   

Comments

  1. Matt3/19/12, 10:56 AM

    Glad you liked the link! A few follow-up thoughts:

    The word of mouth thing didn't surprise me, either. Family events are generally attended by sacks of used books for me.

    I wonder about the e-book stats... I think there are notes that explain where they took their numbers, but e-books are often under-represented in most studies right now (a lot of them exclude Amazon for various reasons). I wonder if that's the case here, too?

    My current reading breakdown is pretty much the same as yours (mostly e-books and paperback). Even before e-books, I rarely bought hardbacks. They're just so darned expensive. I'm loving cheap e-books these days, as it allows me to be a lot more adventurous in my purchasing.

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  2. The Brazen Broads3/19/12, 12:14 PM

    I was thrilled to find your link. RWA isn't a site I habit, so I'd have missed out. I own a few authors' works in hardback, but not many. Expense is the main factor for me also. Now that I've got my Kindle, I mostly read on it. My paperback books come mostly from library selections. And now that you can lend books through Kindle's lending library, e-reading is getting even sweeter!

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