Bowker gives stats on setting, price and format

Bowker loves to collect statistical information about books, and do they ever deliver in a new report making the wires. Some of the highlights:

Surveying over 13,000 works of fiction, Bowker found that 1,550 of those with an identifiable location were set in England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland. New York topped the list of cities, followed by London, Los Angeles (including Hollywood), Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

The average science-fiction novel was 329 pages long, followed by romance at 324, mystery & detective at 292, and westerns at 261 pages.

Most of the books surveyed were genre, and most of them are still published in paperback (be it as originals, or as reprints.) The average suggested retail price for mass market science-fiction novels in 2004 were $7.35, close to the average for all mass market fiction; mystery & detective novels averaged $6.94; and romances continue to be a bargain at $5.57.

Of course, the problem with stats-for-stats’ sake is that they don’t really give an indication of context. Yes, a lot of books are set in New York, but does it mean that when the next novel to come along with that setting gets submitted, will agents and editors cry saturation or go for it because it’s a city they know best? And it would be interesting to get commensurate Bookscan data. Are books set in major cities more likely to sell in major cities, or do those in more regional outposts gravitate towards such books, too? And what of the opposite effect?

Then there’s the paperback question. While the stats claim that “the dominant format for the fiction genre continues to be mass market and non-mass market paperback, with 65% of romance, 61% of science-fiction and 58% of mystery & detective titles published as paperbacks,” how does that compare to previous years, and what percentage is made up of reprints vs. originals?

Further thoughts and additional insight, of course, is always welcome…

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