The habits of readers can be changeable and as savvy writers, it helps to know which way the wind is blowing. Right now, a growing share of Americans are opting to read e-books via tablets and smartphones rather than on e-readers like Kindles or Nooks. But there’s good news on the print front for those of us who are traditional book lovers: According to the Pew Research Center’s “Book Reading 2016” study, print books remain much more popular than digital books. In all, 73% of respondents had read a book, whether printed or digital, in the past year.
More findings about how readers are reading:
• More Americans read print books than read e-books or listen to audio books. Fully 65% of Americans have read a print book in the last year, more than double the share that has read an e-book (28%) and more than four times the share that consumed book content via audio book (14%).
• Americans read an average (mean) of 12 books last year, while the typical (median) American has read 4 books in the last 12 months.
• More women have read a book (77%) than men (68%).
• E-book readership increased by 11% from 2011 to 2014 (from 17% to 28%), but has remained unchanged over the past two years.
• Nearly 40% of Americans read print books exclusively, while only 6% of readers prefer digital-only book formats.
• More than one-quarter (28%) of Americans read books in both print and digital formats (including e-books and audio books).
• In total, 34% of Americans have either read an e-book or listened to an audio book in the last year, but relatively few Americans read books in these digital formats to the exclusion of print books.
• Some 15% of e-book readers prefer a tablet, 13% like cell phones and only 8% use dedicated e-readers. Tablet and phone reading has surged in the past five years while e-reader usage has remained flat.
• Smartphones are “playing an especially prominent role in the e-reading habits of certain demographic groups, such as non-whites and those who have not attended college.”
Heartening to know that books in all formats are alive and well as we all write on!