Some highlights from the report are:
*More than 40 percent of Americans over the age of 13 purchased a book in 2009, and the average age of the American book buyer is 42.
*Women lead men in overall purchases, contributing 64 percent of sales. Even among detective and thriller genres, women top 60 percent of the sales. Fantasy titles are purchased evenly by men and women.
*Baby-boomers are the largest purchasing generation, making up 30 percent of sales. Their elders—matures—contribute 16 percent.
*More income doesn't mean more book purchases. Thirty-two percent of the books purchased in 2009 were from households earning less than $35,000 annually, and 20 percent of those sales were for children's books.
*The top-selling non-fiction genre is biography-autobiography.
- People:
- Kelly Gallagher