The book trade and older readers

[Libby]

In this week’s The Bookseller, the very large publishing company Hachette UK reports on its recent initiative to understand and cater to the UK’s very large customer-group of readers over 45. In 2018 they started an in-house group called AgeWise to do research and, presumably, to make recommendations to Hachette.

What took anyone in publishing so long?

Full disclosure: I’m some way over 45.

The answer from AgeWise is that it’s the generally belated realisation that publishing companies should employ people who reflect the general public and not just a few groups within it. My words not theirs. So this is at least in part an employment initiative. The over 45s are a big book-buying group, while publishing employs a lot of young people.

AgeWise reports that, “The data shows what many of us knew anecdotally: in 2022, readers over 45 spent nearly £990m on buying 145 million books, which is 41% (volume) 40% (value) of all books sold in the UK. This group buys 46.5% (value) of all hardbacks, 48.5% of fiction, 52.7% of non-fiction, and 56.3% (volume) and 44.1% (value) of all e-book purchases.” It doesn’t add what seems to be another truism: most buyers and readers are women.

They continue, “Our consumer research showed that readers think of themselves as “a reader” not an “older reader”. Therefore, we are not suggesting that we tailor content to this age group…”

That’s a relief. I don’t want to be tailored to, thanks. You’ve left me alone for so long I’ve become quite good at choosing the content I want, and your idea of age might not be mine.

The report says, “… we’re asking how do the over 45s hear about books? Where do they buy them? What triggers their purchases?”

Here’s something specific: “One interesting stat from the Nielsen survey is that this group indexes low on audio: only 35% of the market. Are we walking away from a large market by not finding out why? Of course we are.”

I don’t know what the Nielsen survey was or what data it had access to.

I read elsewhere that agents and publisher are greeting older female authors with enthusiasm. (Sorry, men.) The generation of women that helped change society in the 1960s and 70s has interesting tales to tell, and in retirement it has enough time to write books.

When it comes to reflecting different (and overlapping) groups in society it’s true I want to see myself reflected in books. I wanted this when I was a disabled teenager and read Victorian novels about women with tightly restricted lives because this was the next best thing available. It’s also true that about half the time I want to read about people, real and fictional, who are nothing like me in any respect.

So I await being marketed to with interest.

[Athelstone]

Not sure I’m representative, even though I am also (considerably) beyond 45. I don’t read as much as I did when I was, say, in my late-teens or early twenties. Then I could easily clear 3 or 4 books a week, sometimes 1 a day. I read pretty much every day. At the moment I am reading a book by somebody I know to provide a review. I have a vast pile of books, both physical and on devices which grows faster than I clear them. I imagine around half of these are by friends and acquaintances.

There isn’t really one clear reason why I choose particular books other than those by people I know. I read old classics from the last century and headlining novels just published. I read novels and non-fiction mentioned in articles I read online. The only physical periodical I get is the London Review of Books and I have been known to pick items reviewed there.

I’m equally vague on whether I want to be represented, or to choose books tailored for me in any way. I read a fair bit of philosophy, but the idea that my taste in fiction should be restricted to Iris Murdoch or Thomas Mann, or Sartre or whoever, is a non-starter, much though I enjoy all three. I have been known to enjoy books for children and young adults alongside Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro (Yes I know about his YA work). It’s true that I don’t go for action thrillers of the Lee Child variety and I believe that, like the old cigarette packet warning, anything by Ayn Rand should bear a message, “Reading this can seriously damage your intellect”. But I have read both and quite enjoyed the Lee Child offering.

I suppose if I was really pushed to find one thing that influences my purchasing decisions, as an older reader, it’s discussion, particularly reviews of a book. Flashy ads and exhortations that I must read something don’t do it for me. I also make a fair few decisions from browsing in book shops. Perhaps publishers could be encouraged to support a few more of these?

[Libby]

I use reviews too. They’re not my only resource when making choices but they let me know what’s out there in general – what some of the trends and hits are, and the interesting new names.

Then there are the books I want to read because I’ve read the author’s previous book(s).

There are the usual chance factors: browsing in bookshops both new and second hand; recommendations from friends; books by people I know or sort of know. Buying Denizen Hilary Taylor’s debut novel Sea Defences (recommended) led me to buy the publisher’s antipodean bundle – good value for eight books and a way of accessing books from Australia and NZ. If the author is dead I buy second hand. They don’t need the royalties and hopefully it helps the planet.

During the first Covid lockdown I bought some of the books the bookshop happened to have in stock and could post out to customers. I signed up to CB Editions’ deal of a certain number of books delivered over a few months for a set amount of money. When we were all stuck at home this link with the wider world was cheering and apart from, I think, two titles, I let them choose what to send. At that restricted time the link to, and arbitrariness from, a stranger felt important. All the titles were well worthwhile and none of them have gone to the book recycling bank.

Talking of which, the book banks round here have disappeared. The council says recycling banks of any kind attract anti-social behaviour. This, of all things, is affecting my book buying. I mostly read library books but the house has only so much space for anything else and it’s becoming difficult to pass books on. Charities shops have never been very accessible for me. I’m thinking of putting my next lot of unwanted titles in a box on the verge outside the drive with a sign inviting people to take them.

 

 

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