Perhaps you were wondering when I would report on the reader survey that released in June. On the other hand, perhaps you’d forgotten all about it! Here’s a quick look at some of the numbers, beginning with the fact that 927 people responded.
The difficult work of the survey is analyzing connections. For example, the differences between women and men, differences by age or country, comparisons to surveys done in other years, differences by preferred genre, and so on.
For those who entered the giveaway for copies of That Was Then, I’ll be back soon with that!
Books per year:
Affect of the pandemic
Favourite fiction genres:
Because I’m involved with and connected to the historical fiction community, it’s not surprising that so many respondents picked historical fiction as a favourite genre. More analysis to follow!
Favourite non-fiction genres:
As above, it’s not surprising to see so many people listing history as a favourite for their non-fiction reading. But look at how popular memoir and biography are.
Favourite HF time periods:
Because I’m involved in the historical fiction community, I asked about favourite time periods. It will be interesting to see if these preferences have changed in any significant way from past surveys.
Portion of your reading that’s fiction:
I wonder how this will vary by gender or age?
Why read fiction?
To clarify, reason four in the chart is ‘To understand the circumstances of others’ and reason six is ‘To appreciate other places and people in the world.’
Why read non-fiction?
To clarify, reason 2 in the chart is ‘To expand my understanding of the world’ and reason 6 is ‘To appreciate other places and people in the world’.
Prior survey results are on the blog. Click on ‘Reader Surveys’ in the top menu bar for further details and the complete reports. I’ll be back with more charts and analysis soon.
FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY. There’s a SUBSCRIBE function on the right hand side of the page.
M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.
4 Responses
I love this survey . Historical fiction wins well a lot. But I did read somewhere when times are tough, readers go to history. But in good times they go to the science fiction or fantasy. I think it is because HF ….well they made it, then we have hope. In good times, they feel safe to venture into ‘the danger zone.’ Thank you. This was interesting.
Many thanks, Judy!
Thank you for sharing the results with us. Was there anything that surprised you? Or is this like other years you’ve done this survey?
Many thanks for your question. To answer your question, I haven’t yet done the analysis to see if there are any surprises. The charts in this post are just data at this point. But stay tuned! It takes me a while to look through all the details 🙂