Stuff On Sunday: 85% of Book Bloggers Read 1 to 3 Books a Week

29 Jan 2012 48 Comments

by shelleyrae @ Book'd Out in Stuff on Sundays

So last week’s post On Being a Fast Reader had some interesting responses, and I decided to create a poll to get a general idea of how many books book bloggers read a week. With only 71 respondents, the sample is quite small for such a large community but it is interesting nevertheless with  wildly inaccurate extrapolation and anecdotal evidence perhaps some conclusions can be drawn.

My post last week was triggered by Rachel at Fikshun who felt that she was a slow reader in the community because she typically reads only 2-3 books a week. Maybe she will be pleased to know that in fact that very few read more than that, and a significant amount read less than that.

The majority of book-bloggers (84.51%) read between 1 and 3 books a week, and I think, from traipsing around many blogs in the last week via memes (300+) and by reading the comments on both Rachel’s post and mine that is likely an average across the board.

There are very few book bloggers who read four or more books a week.

So why do we assume that book bloggers regularly read more than that? I have some theories, but they may be a little controversial.

My first theory is the misconception is reinforced by IMM type posts. The assumption being that people are actually reading the books they list each week, when in fact they read very few of them. There are a dozen blogs I could name that regularly list a dozen or more books a week in these type of posts but a quick scroll through their post archives, or Goodreads shelves,  show they read and review between 1 and 3 books a week. It may look like they are reading a lot when it fact they just have shelves full of unread books. Without naming this particular ‘superstar’ blogger, in 2011 she has listed around 35 books a month in her IMM posts but she has not read more than 12 books a month in that entire time. That publishers continue to provide ARC’s and free books to book bloggers who will likely never read them is a subject for another post.

My second theory is that when we look at a blog we somehow equate how often the person posts with how much they read, so a blogger who posts every day of the week,  even though only one post may be an actual review, is assumed to be reading more that they actually are. I think this is particularly true where a blogger posts a lot of promotional type posts extolling the virtues of a newest release but haven’t actually read it yet.

My third theory has to do with my suspicions that there are some (though very few) book bloggers who actually don’t read the books they ‘review’ at all. Their reviews are typically little else but a rewording of the synopsis and a general throwaway line like, “I really enjoyed this book, you have to read it!!!!” There isn’t an ounce of actual opinion or detail that can’t be found on the back cover in the post, and it’s screamingly obvious when the actual content of the book varies from what the blurb wants you to think the book is about. I can’t speak as to the motivations of these bloggers, but free books (and their resale value) is tempting to some, others may just be desperate to be part of the book blogging community. I really don’t know why someone would bother but it does happen, as evidenced by incidents of plagiarised blog posts.

Lastly, I think that so many of us want to be able to read more, no matter how many books we actually read,  that we feel everyone is reading faster than us even if the evidence proves that is not the case.

Tell me though, if you thought book bloggers usually read more than 3 books a week, what gave you that impression? 

Do you feel better about the amount of books you read a week given the (speculative) statistics?

 

 

 

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