Codex Group is a market research firm specializing in the publishing industry, and last week at a meeting in D.C., it unveiled a load of statistics on book-buying.
One chart laid out the “product penetration” of the Kindle. Amazon is close-lipped about sales of the tool, and one reason may be the discrepancy between the publicity Kindle has attracted and the extent of its adoption.
Using a sample of nearly 20,000 “book shoppers,” Codex found that less than 1 percent of the population has “Kindle ownership.” By age group, the largest adopters were 55-64-year-olds, who reach .9 percent. Over-65 were at .6 percent, while 25-54-year-olds were at .5 percent. The youngest group surveyed, 18-24-year-olds had the lowest adoption rate by far, .2 percent.
Codex also charted the sources of books that are read by different age groups for pleasure. It found that books had their “Napster Moment” long ago, with only 35 percent of books read by 18-24-year-olds actually purchased by them. The other 65 percent came from the home, as gifts, or were borrowed from the library. For 55-64-year-olds, the purchase rate went up to 49 percent. Five percent of books read by 18-24-year-olds were downloaded for free off the Internet.
As for the Kindle and other digital sources as a source for purchased books, for both 18-24-year-olds and 55-64-year-olds they remain a tiny portion of sales —about 3 percent.
For both age groups, new (not used) paperbacks hold at around half of all book sales. That figure is a sign, in part, of what an extraordinary technology a paperback book really is. Think about its characteristics. It’s light and portable and small; it fits in your pocket; if you drop it, no big deal; it’s cheap (at used prices); it can be consumed with little damage; when you finish it, you can sell it back (however low the price); and it contains hours of diversion.
