Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Statistics I Baked For You Nom Nom Nom

Know Your Audience:
1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, http://www.jenkinsgroupinc.com/)

53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspense, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)

About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S. from traditional publishers (not self-publishing warehouses like Amazon and Smashwords).

A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
(Source: Authors Guild, http://www.authorsguild.org/)

On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
(Source: Para Publishing, http://www.parapub.com/)

Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
(Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker)
Happy Writing Tuesday!

27 comments:

  1. How much time do people spend reading blogs every day?

    That first batch of numbers explains the Tea Party movement. Yeesh, we've got a bunch of semi-literate dunderheads in this country. Makes me sad.

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  2. This is a very interesting post Michael... thanks

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  3. Very interesting! But ugh! Let's put book on the TV :)

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  4. Mutt: LOL T.E.A. Party. Ayep. I love the phrase "semi-literate dunderheads".

    Munk: Thanks :)

    Kerri: I agree.

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  5. Amazing stats Mike. I was wondering how many copies to you need to sell to be successful. 5 000 sounds about right. The Broom Of The System had sold 20 000 the year it came out, so it gives me a good idea of Wallace's success.

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  6. The first few statistics made me wonder where most of America was while they weren't in bookstores. And then I remembered there were such things as televisions, movies, sports games, bars...

    Statistics are fun :D Thanks for this!

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  7. very interesting. I think it's important to remember, too, that the reason many people don't go into bookstores is because they buy most of their books online?

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  8. Y'all are just a fountain of optimism today Michael. This is why Math is hated. Math crushes dreams, hopes, ability to balance bank accounts! And the fact you can lie in statistics by changing variables has rendered any statistic I read in the news as questionable.

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  9. Don't lie though Steph, you only spent 14 minutes getting your news today.

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  10. Yikes! I shouldn't be caught off guard by statistics like this, but somehow I manage to forget how unimportant reading is to so many people. A little depressing, but not enough for me to give up writing! Viva el libro!

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  11. Great info though I can't seem to get past the first item that 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Can that possibly be true? Even my brother who hates to read gets through at least one book a year (admittedly bought by me for his birthday).

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  12. My friend Joey graduated from college a few years ago and aside from assignments given to him at school, has never read a book on his own. To this day, he has stayed that way. He hates books.

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  13. I LOVE LOVE LOVE statistics! (is my geekness showing?) Interesting stuff though. It is so amazing to me who doesn't read. I was psyched to get done with college and finally get to PICK what I read! My husband though, doesn't read books. Occasionally he will read a non-fiction, and he reads the newspaper cover to cover daily but he doesn't endorse imagination in any form... And my daughter is a bit of a reluctant reader. I think she WILL though, as she likes to write and that was what pushed me into expanding genres and spending more time.

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  14. Here's a relevant and funny article.

    http://www.sportspickle.com/opinion/6026/kemba-walkers-book-club

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  15. Reading that stuff just hurts.

    My brother has never finished a book in his entire life. At least, not since he was, probably, 6. I'm not even sure he ever read any books on his own when he was a little kid, come to think about it. And he never finished a book in high school. Just read enough to fake it on the test.
    My brother is what writers have to look forward to. Unfortunately.

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  16. Hi, Michael,

    Seems like television and radio take precedence over reading. The statistics you posted are kinda scary. It's kinda feels like most people stop reading after their required reading for school is at an end.

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  17. Interesting stats. I was a bit surprised by the high percentage of people not reading another book after high school, and percentage of families that didn't buy a book last year. I'd like to see the population data on those, how many people were polled, the demographics, etc.

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  18. Are these statistics for real? I am guilty of starting books and not finishing, earlier because I was busy with kids and house work, now because I am getting old and my eyes are getting tired. We used to go to Barnes and Noble and Walden Books once a week and to the library on almost a daily basis. Now we go to Barnes and Noble once a month and to the libraries only once in a while.
    I urge that if people want to write, they write earlier in their age. It will be so much easier. Read whenever you get a chance, because this thing called life and making a living will not give you a chance otherwise.

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  19. Sounds like I need to start writing for television! LOL! (Although as I understand it, it's hard to get anyone to read your script even if they do like it. They just want a quick pitch! No one wants to read!)

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  20. Wow, some of these stats are just depressing. I wonder how greatly they are affected by income level and demographics. hmm..

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  21. Some of those stats are depressing. I'm sharing this on Facebook.

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  22. Theresa's facebook link brought me here.

    While these stats are depressing and frightening, it won't do any of us any good to become apathetic. We need to fight for a literate youth and get reading and writing on the same priority level as math and science. And we need courses that make kids think: humanities, arts, and music.

    It is all hopeless, isn't it...

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  23. LOL. Nah. Not hopeless. The population of the United States is 350 million and rising (albeit slowly). When you examine percentages...there's still a large group of people out there reading. It's just not as large as you'd think. Even if it were 1% on any of this, that's still 3.5 million people. Nothing to sneeze at.

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  24. Wow, really? I don't want to believe that 80% of US families just don't read. I knew that most books don't earn back their advance, but I didn't know it was 70%. Also, 5,000 books seems really low for to be considered a success. I'm sure it's counter productive to just buy 5,000 copies of my own book but I'm very tempted.

    demitrialunetta.blogspot.com
    demitrialunetta.blogspot.com

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  25. Now I am REALLY sad and want to spend the day forcing even more books on my middle school students!

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  26. Wow - ouch. Very sobering statistics, but it proves to me that writers are an optimistic bunch!

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