Do you know what drives readers to buy books?
Last week, New York City hosted the Digital Book World conference. Digital Book World is operated by F + W Media, and the conference focus was on the impact of digital books on the publishing industry and traditional publishers.
One presentation is now available as an online slide show. Verso Advertising presented a 2011 Survey of Book-Buying Behavior. The slide show contains 46 images and gives some great graphic examples of demographics of book buyers, their buying habits, and their opinions on digital books and devices. It’s worth the 10-15 minutes it takes to flip through all the slides, but here are a few highlights:
- Slide 10 discusses discoverability or how readers find out about new books.
- Slide 31 discusses ebook pricing.
- Slide 32 discusses piracy and whether respondents had downloaded pirated material.
More and more, indie authors need to broaden their perspective and think like publishers. Studies such as these are a great way to fact gather solid stats used by the major players in the industry.