Dry Results, part 2: The Blog (continued)

The first half of part 2 can be found here, and a compiled list of results is located here!

Book clubs:

Truth be told, I really didn't expect these numbers. Only 31% of bloggers were part of a book club in the past year, while 68% were not (and 1 participant declined to state). My impression had always been that, despite my disinterest in the field, most book bloggers actively participated in book clubs. Perhaps a distinction was made between online book clubs and the flesh-and-blood variety? Or perhaps book clubs simply aren't ubiquitously popular. 31% is a respectable sum, after all.

Book giveaways:
A not so surprising set of numbers, on its own. 34% of book bloggers never give book away on their blogs, 37% have the rare, yearly giveaway, 19% conduct once or twice a month giveaways, 6% have giveaways 3-5 times a month, and 1% are frequent book giveaway-ers at 6+ giveaways a month. 3% declined to state.

Giveaway types:
Another set of fairly balanced results, with the possibility of multiple answers - 31% give no books away, 35% give away ARCs (advance reading copies), 49% give away personal copies of books, 48% host publisher giveaways, 5% listed other and 2% declined to state. Interestingly enough, the number of those who give no books away did not exactly match the previous result - 31% as opposed to 34%.

Receiving ARCs (advance reading copies):
There were a few interesting freehand responses to this question, a rather surprising occurrence. 16% of survey participants receive no ARCs, 21% receive the rare advanced reader's copy while 17% receive 5-10 books a year. An additional 17% get 11-20 ARCs, and a solid 26% get at least 21 ARCs a year. 4% declined to state. Comments left, however, indicated that there was a slight problem with the phrasing of this question - more on that later.

Social networking:
And now for something a little different. First off, 8% of respondents are not registered in any kind of book-oriented social networking sites, clearly a book blogger minority. In the bookstore/exchange sites, the numbers are mostly expected: 45% of survey participants are registered at Amazon, 24% at BookMooch, a small at IndieBound, and an additional 18% at Paperback Swap. Meanwhile, in the more social networking area, 24% of respondents are members of Shelfari, 65% at Goodreads, 57% at LibraryThing, and 40% at Book Blogs Ning. 7% filled in "Other", offering sites such as Bookblips, Twitter and Facebook, including many others (more on this later). 1% declined to state. The fun thing about this question is that it became something of a race as more and more book bloggers filled out the survey. What exactly was the race? Stay tuned!

eReaders:
Guess what, fellow book bloggers? You know all those "eReaders are taking over!" articles? Book bloggers are pretty serious readers, and yet a clear majority of 71% do not own any kind of eReader. Meanwhile, among those who do, there is a fairly obvious leader, though not by as large a margin as one might expect: Amazon's Kindle 2 leads the pack with 8% of respondents owning one. Meanwhile, 4% own the Kindle 1 and 2% own the Kindle DX. iPhone eReader apps seem pretty popular too: 5% have the Kindle app. 5% have different eReader apps. In Sony land, the PRS-500, PRS-505, and PRS-300 all received 2% ownership. The PRS-700 and PRS-600 both received 1% popularity. 1 respondent owns a Sony PRS-900. 1%, meanwhile, own the Barnes & Noble Nook. 3% own other eReaders, listing examples like Aluratek's Libre or Elonex's eBooks, two eReaders I personally had never heard of. It's important to keep in mind a few points which will be developed further in later posts: 1. The survey was pre-iPad, so results might be a little different today, 2. People upgrade eReaders and in several cases, people who had one eReader also had another (this applies for apps as well), and 3. Many, many participants felt the need to comment on their desire (or lack thereof) of purchasing eReaders. But more on these topics later.


This, meanwhile, concludes the official "Dry Results" part of the book blogger statistics. Apologies for the delay - results may be slow to come out, but they will all eventually be published. Once again, feel free to link and discuss these numbers. Tune in in the next couple of weeks for the next rounds of stats.