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Friday Forum: How Did You Hear About Your Current Read?

Jeff O'Neal

CEO and co-founder

Jeff O'Neal is the executive editor of Book Riot and Panels. He also co-hosts The Book Riot Podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @thejeffoneal.

Some research unveiled at Digital Book World this week offered some rare insight into the habits and values of “avid readers”: those Americans who read more than 10 books a year (there are 70 million of you!).

The slide I found most interesting (go to slide 10) shows how readers hear about the books they read: I’ve often wondered about what influences us to pick up the books we do. Unsurprisingly, recommendations from friends and family is the number one way people hear about books. Down from there, though, the numbers are quite a bit different than I would have thought. Only 18.9% of book decisions are motivated by reviews, a number which lumps together both customer reviews on sites like Amazon and traditional media reviews from The New York Times. Almost a quarter of book decisions are motivated by advertising and a little more than 12% from book blogs (!).

The polled readers come from a wide swath, and it occurred to me that if this many general readers are influenced by book blogs, then people who read about books online probably are even more influenced by blogs and customer reviews.

So heres a little not-at-all scientific poll for our readers: how did you find out about the book you are reading right now?

Blog? Sister? Book club? Banner ad? Review? (“I’m not exactly sure” is a totally reasonable and interesting answer as well.)

Let us know in the comments: if we get enough responses I’ll put together a little Book Riot pie chart of our own.