I'm moving back into a day job I had -- part time anyway. This means that I will be picking back up the pseudonyms that I had with the company. These personas havn't put out a new title in over six months. With my Fiction Writers Group I was going to put together a few posts on using Twitter for best effect. I noticed several of the members are on Twitter now fumbling about. In the past I didn't do any marketing for the pseudonyms at all, but the names are cold long enough for proof of concept now. I'm fairly good with Twitter and Social Media I can normally get 3k page views on any given day. In fact I did that on Friday -- again as a proof of concept.
Where you start with Twitter is the hashtags, but not necessarily in the "trending" ones. What you are looking for is a set of Hashtags that are frequented by people who would be your readers. Once found you get involved, post interesting news, facts, jokes, and help people with problems they might have. You make yourself a resource. But first, you need to find those tags, which means Demographics.
Where you start with Twitter is the hashtags, but not necessarily in the "trending" ones. What you are looking for is a set of Hashtags that are frequented by people who would be your readers. Once found you get involved, post interesting news, facts, jokes, and help people with problems they might have. You make yourself a resource. But first, you need to find those tags, which means Demographics.
Framing the questions is a typical method of making a survey show the results you want them to show. If you are looking at the results of a demographic survey -- it is always best to find the questions they used when gathering the information so that you can assess the framing
Demographic analysis can cover whole societies, or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and ethnicity. Educational institutions usually treat demography as a field of sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments.The more you can narrow it down, and the better you can remove bias from the questions -- use non-framing words -- the better the outcome.
Romance Reader Statistics
Romance Writers of America commissioned Nielsen to perform the creation, implementation, and analysis of the 2014 Nielsen Romance Buyer Survey. Below is some of the information discovered about romance readers.
The Romance Book Buyer |
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What They Read and Buy
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How They're Getting Their Books
How do romance readers acquire romance books?
Top answers:
(1) Buy them in stores
(2) Buy them online at a retail site (e.g., Amazon.com) (3) Borrow them from a library (4) Download them to my e-reader (e.g., Kindle or Nook) (5) Receive or borrow them from friends/relatives (6) Buy them via a mobile app to use on a tablet/smartphone and/or read later on a dedicated e-reader (7) Acquire them through book club subscription (8) Acquired them as part of a subscription service (e.g., Oyster, Scribd, Amazon Prime) Which stores have they bought from most often?
Physical store (top five):
(1) Barnes & Noble
(2) Walmart (3) Target (4) Used bookstore (5) Supermarket/grocery store
Online store (top five):
(1) Amazon.com
(2) Ebooks.com (3) B&N.com (4) iTunes/iBooks (5) eHarlequin.com |
How They Discover Romance Books |
Most-important factor when deciding on which romance novel to buy (ranked from most to least important):
(1) The story
(2) The author (3) Price (4) Review (5) Part of a series (6) Back cover copy (7) Cover art (8) Recommendations on a social media site (9) Deal/bundle/bargain/special offer (10) An endorsement by another leading author
In the last six months, the top activity done in regards to romance reading is searched for a new romance author to read, followed by: received social media updates from favorite authors through either Facebook or Twitter, shared author or book information on social media, offered feedback on romance to others, and participated in discussions online about romance books.
Top 10 ways romance buyers are most likely to discover new romance authors or titles to read (ranked from most likely to least):
(1) Browsing in a bookstore
(2) In person recommendation from people you know (3) Browsing online book sites (4) Best-seller lists (5) From books I've sampled (6) Following favorite authors on social media (7) From book recommendation lists (8) Library or library staff recommendations (9) Book review blogs and sites (10) From online retail sites that recommend based on what I've bought/read before
Do romance readers talk with friends and acquaintances about romance books they're reading?
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What Formats Do Romance Buyers Use?
Formats read versus formats read most often
Print:
E-book:
Audiobook:
Top genres for e-books: erotica, romance, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical, and adult fiction.
E-book pricing: The $6 range is considered a "fair price" for e-books.
E-book for one device versus across multiple devices: 77 percent said that when they buy romance e-books, they tend to buy a title for use on one device; 23 percent buy a romance e-book to use across multiple devices.
E-book deal services: A little over 36 percent of romance buyers subscribe to an e-book deal service that recommends romance e-books for purchase, matching their interest, often providing free and/or discounted e-books. The most-subscribed-to service is Bookbub.
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Deep Dive Methodology/Limitations
The results are from an online survey, fielded April/May 2014. A sample of 2,000 "romance" book buyers was drawn from Nielsen's Books and Consumers survey tracker from the previous 6 months (October 2013 through March 2014).
The results are from an online survey, fielded April/May 2014. A sample of 2,000 "romance" book buyers was drawn from Nielsen's Books and Consumers survey tracker from the previous 6 months (October 2013 through March 2014).
The survey is not representative of "offline" populations.
Nielsen used "return to sample" from their sample provider "MetrixLabs."
Nielsen did not go after readers who don't buy, though they did get data about readers who read significantly more than they buy.
The sample closely matches the demographics of romance book buyers in Nielsen's Books and Consumers tracker.
Data Sources
A little from BookStats (BISG/AAP): comprehensive view of overall Book Publishing Business.
A little more from Nielsen Books and Consumer Monthly Tracker: yields 6,000 book buyers per month, representing 18,000 book purchases.
Mostly from Nielsen Romance Buyer Survey for RWA: proprietary deep dive study for RWA; drawn from the Books and Consumer Tracker who bought a romance book in the last 6 months.
Learn More about Demography
- Demography at DMOZ
- Historicalstatistics.org Links to historical demographic and economic statistics
- United Nations Population Division: Homepage
- World Population Prospects, the 2012 Revision, Population estimates and projections for 230 countries and areas
- World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision, Estimates and projections of urban and rural populations and urban agglomerations
- Probabilistic Population Projections, the 2nd Revision, Probabilistic Population Projections, based on the 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects.
- Java Simulation of Population Dynamics.
- Basic Guide to the World: Population changes and trends, 1960 to 2003
- Brief review of world basic demographic trends
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