Robyn Jackson gave the following statistics (on Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshops website):
1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)
53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspense.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)
About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S.
(Source: www.bookwire.com)
The blog has a 2003 copyright and 2010 conference information so I don’t know how current these statistics are, but even so I found the stats rather interesting. I’m startled by the ’80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.’
Recently I read someplace that people who do not usually buy print books are purchasing ebooks for ereaders. Hopefully, that 80% will be a lower number in future years and the U.S. will become a nation of readers (wasn’t that a slogan for a library promotion at one time?).
