For What It’s Worth
There were 127 respondents to my survey about publishing, but the free account at Survey Monkey limits results to 100 people. All the other responses are sitting behind some Internet wall, trying to get me to spend $19.95.
So, below, are the responses I got for free. A very hearty thank you to everyone who participated. I won’t argue that this survey was perfectly-composed, but it was at least anecdotally helpful for me, and thought provoking. I assume I’ll be honing these questions over time and coming back with more questions.
52% of survey respondents buy 1-3 books/month.
32% purchase 4-6.12% purchase more than 7.
4% purchase none.
36% of these people buy between 26 and 50% of their books from independent presses.
29% buy from 1 to 25% independent titles.
22% buy 51 to 75% independent.
God bless the 8% who buy 76 to 100% of their books from independent presses.
Likewise, God bless the 5% who buy 0 from indies. Cross reference that with the 4% who buy 0 books, and that factors to 1% of the respondents who buy no independent press books.
No one skipped either of these questions.
Five people skipped the next question, which was:
Is the quality of writing from an independent press better (or more interesting, or otherwise more appealing) than writing from mainstream publishers?
Of those who answered, 48.4% said “No” while 51.6% said “Yes.”
85.6% of respondents consider familiarity with the author’s work to be a factor when buying books.
72.2% respond to reviews, interviews and “general buzz.”
68% factor in their friends’ recommendations.
63.9% consider the recommendations on blogs.
59.8% factor in samples from the book when purchasing.
45.4% respond to the cover design.
30.9% factor their friendship with the author or publisher into the decision.
11.3% do it, at least in part, as a general kindness for the world.
7.2% factor in the possibility of becoming friends with the author or publisher, and also
7.2% of the respondents want to ingratiate themselves with the writer.
Only 5.2% factor in advertisements.
Additionally, there were 14 other reasons provided, many of which I should have included in the first place. A couple of the comments are qualifications for the responses. These 14 are:
The jacket copy.
Price of used books.
Sounds interesting.
Common Sense.
Always wanted to read the book/fill in gaps in education.
The general and never-ending pursuit of understanding.
What press it comes from.
Allusion in other works.
Having money or not having money; when I have money (not often these days), I’m always playing catch-up with friends’ recommendations. (Prior to 2008, I used to buy about 10 books per month.)
Sense of the publisher’s community.
Blog recommendation is part of general buzz. Friend recommendation could be part of general buzz. I read “the most” as “at all.”
All of the above.
Friend must be one of several particular people whose taste I generally share.
Wanting to lower my amount of friends. Not wanting to have any friends. Hating friends. Fucking friends over by accident with book purchases.
Three people chose not to respond to that question at all. Three people also skipped question 5, which asked, “Do you perceive a difference between an independent press and a small press?”
52.6% do not perceive a difference.
41.2% do.
6.2% agreed with the statement that “an independent press is basically a ‘zine.”
The follow up to this question asked respondents to identify independent presses from a list. I didn’t think much about the publishers I listed; I just pulled off the top of my head.
83.3% identified Dzanc as an independent press.
83.3% checked off Mud Luscious, too.
63.6% consider Dalkey to be an indie.
62.1% identified Coffee House as such.
60.6% said Copper Canyon was.
Only 56.1% consider Scrambler to be an independent press.
4.5% said Knopf was, 3% for HarperPerennial, and 1.5% said Random House was.
78.4% consider their experience buying books from an independent press as generally good.
20.6% said it was neither bad nor good.
1% characterized the experience as generally bad. (3 people didn’t answer.)
85.3% of the respondents do not run or work for an independent press.
14.7%, amounting to 14 people (5 people skipped the question), do. Six presses were listed (but I will not name them to protect anonymity).
82.8% of the respondents are writers.
17.2% are not.
1 person didn’t respond.
67.9% of the respondents consider their writing better than some of the people getting published these days.
32.1% are not better writers, as far as they’re concerned.
Tags: independent literature
is the pool pretty much exclusively htmlgiant readers?
Yes. I didn’t post the link anywhere else, or promote the survey anywhere else. However, I noticed it on Google Reader, so there may be some distillation.
Thank you so much.
Interesting stuff, Adam. It’s funny, the discrepant ideas about small press v. independent press. I actually have the opposite idea of small v. independent than the question implies.
When I think “independent,” I think of a press like Copper Canyon that’s a financially successful press, but is “independent” in the sense that it’s not a corporate entity like Random House or Penguin. And “independent” as a blanket term for any press that is not a corp. entity like those.
“Small” press to me is a sub-set of independent presses that tend to smaller in scope, e.g. PubGen, mlp, &c.
I see what you’re saying. I’m primarily interested in exploring whether or not the whole thing is an imposed distinction, so the terms aren’t so much the issue. You break it down well — it’s not so much a dichotomy as it is, in some sense, a subset of one thing.
i find it pretty interesting that only 5.2% of people were influenced by advertising. actually, i find that pretty cool.
i think should add an answer of, if people factor in a successful event reading of a book when buying.
okay cool thanks.
successful or un
Dalkey Archive Press is not a corporate entity, but it is connected to a University and receives a lot of its money from government cultural ministries around the world. Can one still call it “independent”?
is the pool pretty much exclusively htmlgiant readers?
i am also interested in the idea of what an Independent Press means in this survey. 90% of the books I buy are used. a lot of these books certainly from from what were independent or independent-ish presses at the time. so, if I say 100% of the 12-15 books I buy a month are From Independent Presses, but they are all bought used, found via either Amazon Marketplace or sites like Abe.com or Bookfinder.com, would that factor into these results?
i always think “scene” when I think “indie” anything.
“small press” not so much.
Likewise, Copper Canyon got $60K from the NEA last year (or something like that), and Dzanc can be considered a “parent company” for Black Lawrence, Keyhole, Starcherone atc, so are those guys “independent”?
Yes. I didn’t post the link anywhere else, or promote the survey anywhere else. However, I noticed it on Google Reader, so there may be some distillation.
Thank you so much.
Interesting stuff, Adam. It’s funny, the discrepant ideas about small press v. independent press. I actually have the opposite idea of small v. independent than the question implies.
When I think “independent,” I think of a press like Copper Canyon that’s a financially successful press, but is “independent” in the sense that it’s not a corporate entity like Random House or Penguin. And “independent” as a blanket term for any press that is not a corp. entity like those.
“Small” press to me is a sub-set of independent presses that tend to smaller in scope, e.g. PubGen, mlp, &c.
I see what you’re saying. I’m primarily interested in exploring whether or not the whole thing is an imposed distinction, so the terms aren’t so much the issue. You break it down well — it’s not so much a dichotomy as it is, in some sense, a subset of one thing.
i find it pretty interesting that only 5.2% of people were influenced by advertising. actually, i find that pretty cool.
i think should add an answer of, if people factor in a successful event reading of a book when buying.
okay cool thanks.
successful or un
Dalkey Archive Press is not a corporate entity, but it is connected to a University and receives a lot of its money from government cultural ministries around the world. Can one still call it “independent”?
i am also interested in the idea of what an Independent Press means in this survey. 90% of the books I buy are used. a lot of these books certainly from from what were independent or independent-ish presses at the time. so, if I say 100% of the 12-15 books I buy a month are From Independent Presses, but they are all bought used, found via either Amazon Marketplace or sites like Abe.com or Bookfinder.com, would that factor into these results?
i always think “scene” when I think “indie” anything.
“small press” not so much.
Likewise, Copper Canyon got $60K from the NEA last year (or something like that), and Dzanc can be considered a “parent company” for Black Lawrence, Keyhole, Starcherone atc, so are those guys “independent”?
more like only 5.2% of people admitted to being influenced by advertising, or are conscious of being influenced by advertising.
same could probably be said about the % of people who said cover design influenced their purchasing decisions.
then again, there really isn’t too much book advertising being done these days, especially from small/independent presses. & i’d bet most of the advertising the respondents are exposed to is on the internet, which we have all learned to tune out by now.
Thanks for doing this, Adam!
i sort of thought general buzz and blogs and junk were a form of advertisement, but they were listed separately, so I assumed it meant full-blown ads like the banners on this site which I barely notice.
more like only 5.2% of people admitted to being influenced by advertising, or are conscious of being influenced by advertising.
same could probably be said about the % of people who said cover design influenced their purchasing decisions.
then again, there really isn’t too much book advertising being done these days, especially from small/independent presses. & i’d bet most of the advertising the respondents are exposed to is on the internet, which we have all learned to tune out by now.
Thanks for doing this, Adam!
i sort of thought general buzz and blogs and junk were a form of advertisement, but they were listed separately, so I assumed it meant full-blown ads like the banners on this site which I barely notice.