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Survey Results
BY LYNN GREEN, BOOKPAGE EDITOR Be careful what you wish for. The staff of BookPage wished for feedback from our readers, and oh, boy, did we get it. After including a reader survey in our February issue, we sat back and waited for the responses to trickle in. After all, how many BookPage readers would take the time to clip out a two-page survey about their reading habits, fill in the answers to 23 questions and use their own 37-cent stamp to mail it to our office in Nashville? I estimated that, if we were lucky, a few hundred readers might take the time to complete the survey. Julia Steele, associate publisher of BookPage and creator of the survey, had higher hopes, thinking we would hear from at least 1,000 readers. Guess who was closer? Within a few days after the February issue hit the stands, responses began pouring in. On one day alone, the mailman delivered 493 surveys! Stacks of envelopes appeared all around our office as we struggled to keep up with the tasks of opening, reading and inputting the survey data. While we worked, we created a survey "wall of fame" to post responses that were decorated, illustrated or otherwise embellished. Meanwhile, at BookPage.com, hundreds of readers began completing the online version of the survey. By the time all was said and done, 7,270 readers had responded to the survey online and by mail! Whew. And what did we learn from those thousands of willing respondents? First, that you LOVE books and reading, and second (all modesty aside here) that you're quite fond of BookPage, too. With a steady decline nationwide in the number of publications devoting space to book reviews, our readers appear genuinely grateful for a monthly source of information on the best in new books. We heard from readers in 50 states and 12 foreign countries, with the Midwest being the most represented region (41 percent of responses) and Ohio being the top state. Eighty-three percent say they read every issue, and 56 percent pass along their copy of BookPage to others. And they take our recommendations to heart: 91 percent buy books they discover in BookPage, and 90 percent check out books from the library based on our reviews. One surprising result came from this question: how many books do you typically read per year? We included what we thought were four reasonable choices: 1-3 books, 4-6 books, 7-11 books, or 12 or more books. Did we ever underestimate your appetite for books! A whopping 87 percent replied that they read 12 or more books each year, while only 1 percent checked the smallest category (1-3 books). In hindsight, we think a category of 100 or more books per year would have gotten a sizable number of responses. (One such respondent was Lisa Millot of Dayton, Ohio, who told us she still reads at least 100 books a year at age 81 and had been reading three books a week since the third grade. "I pity anyone who doesn't know the joys of reading," she wrote.) We found that BookPage readers tend to be:
The survey showed that the most popular category of books among our readers is Fiction (listed by 73 percent of respondents), followed by Mystery (64 percent), Biographies/Memoirs (43 percent), History (31 percent) and Romance (26 percent). The most popular features in BookPage are the author interviews, while the handwritten "Meet the Author" questionnaires run a close second. We'll continue to study the survey results as we work to make BookPage a better and more responsive publication. Thanks to the thousands of readers who took the time to share their thoughts, and congratulations to the 25 survey respondents who were randomly selected to receive a $50 gift certificate for the purchase of books: Alexander Alterisio-Gagnon, Manchester, New Hampshire
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