Reader surveys of interest

Trolling the web is one of my favourite pastimes and I can lose myself for hours diving down one proverbial rabbit hole after another. A few days ago, I decided to search the combo of social reading and reader surveys to see what serendipity would produce.

Goodreads conducted a 2014 survey, reported in the Australian news, showing that readers read their own gender. No surprise there, really, although the ‘why’ is missing from the article. Apparently, women are also more open minded when it came to reading new books and, when rating books, both men and women rated books written by female authors higher than their male counterparts. Hmm, interesting.

source: Goodreads Slideshare presentation
source: Goodreads Slideshare presentation

What’s going on with readers today? – a presentation by Otis Chandler of Goodreads using Gone Girl and Night Circus to compare readers’ preferences. Top reasons for choosing a book: trusted friend, everyone’s talking about it, book club, Goodreads review, “best of” list, sample read. Goodreads members share 19 million books/month on Facebook. 37% of smart phone users read books on them. 31% highlight when reading an e-book.

From Commentary to Conversation: The Evolution of Social Reading – an article in Publishing Perspectives by Matteo Berlucchi, former CEO, of Anobii (now Sainsbury e-books). The key to the success of social reading is the ability to restrict the conversation to only your chosen network of people.

The Virtual Bookshelf: How online reading networks are reinventing social reading – a university thesis by Kirsten de Hoog offering many interesting points. For example, the author suggests that digital has allowed the infrastructure around reading to become “less formal and authoritative”. The author explores macro and micro reading groups and then positions the attributes of online reading groups against these two categories.

I’m finding these bits fascinating. What about you?

FOR MORE POSTS ON SOCIAL READING AS WELL AS INSIDE HISTORICAL FICTION, FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY

M.K. Tod writes historical fiction and blogs about all aspects of the genre at A Writer of History. Her latest novel, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE is set in WWI France and is available from Amazon, NookKoboGoogle Play and iTunes. Her debut novel, UNRAVELLED: Two wars. Two affairs. One marriage. is also available from these retailers.

Mary can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

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5 Responses

  1. Readers read their own gender…interesting. My question is, do they read books written by their own gender or read books with protagonists in their own gender?

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