The Majority of Science Fiction Readers Read eBooks

I’ve just been handed the results of a recent survey. It’s non-scientific but it does raise some interesting possibilities about eBook adoption.

The science fiction author Stephen Hunt wasn’t satisfied with the questions asked in some eBook surveys, so he decided to do his own. Using his website as well as Twitter and Facebook,  he polled his readers in June 2011. He received 836 responses.

71 percent read eBooks, a far larger number of respondents than I was expecting, even for SF readers. Also, another 20 percent are planning to get their first eReader. The survey also shows that as a reading device, the Kindle is still lagging behind the PC , with 35 percent using the Kindle and 65 percent using a computer.

One other detail is that buying direct from the publisher is more popular (39 percent) than any other source except the Kindle Store (54 percent).If this holds true across the eBook market, then it raises doubt about the market share claims made by the major eBookstores.

Also, it’s clear that diverse platform support is paying dividends for Amazon; many more respondents buy from the Kindle Store than own a Kindle.

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image by Bartmani

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