Book Blogger Survey: Survey of 500+ book reviewers

BOOK BLOGGER SURVEY 2016

RESULTS OF A SURVEY OF 502 BOOK BLOGGERS

BARB DROZDOWICH

Copyright 2016 & 2018 & 2022 Barb Drozdowich

All Rights Reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book only. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Barb Drozdowich.

This Ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Ebook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy.

Cover Design by Michelle Fairbanks/Fresh Design

Editing by Gwynnith Smith

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

I would like to thank each and every book blogger who took a few minutes to answer my questions.

This book is dedicated to you.

CONTENTS

Note of Thanks

Introduction

1. About the Survey

2. The Questions

3. The Results

4. The Analysis

Conclusion

Your Helpful Hints are waiting…

Appendix 1 - Why did you start blogging?

Appendix 2 - What type of affiliate links do you use?

Appendix 3 - Do you pay attention to form letters? Or do you just delete them?

Appendix 4 - How Satisfied are you with your Blogging Experience?

Appendix 5 - How Serious are you about your Blog?

Appendix 6 - Have you ever been the victim of aggressive behavior from another book blogger or an author? If yes, describe

Appendix 7 - If you could give an author one piece of advice about promoting their book, what would it be?

About the Author

Also by Barb Drozdowich

NOTE OF THANKS

I would like to thank you for buying one of my books!

I tend to focus on the technical tasks that authors and bloggers need to learn. As of this publishing I have 27 books in print and several more in various stages of completion. I’m always looking to be helpful - often creating books around subjects that I get a lot of questions on from authors and bloggers just like you.

At the end of this book is the link join my group of readers and get some free help with the technical subjects.

On to the book - I hope you enjoy and learn lots!

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the analysis of the Book Blogger Survey 2016! This is the second extensive survey that I’ve done of book bloggers – the first one was in late 2012. The second book blogger survey was started in October 2015 and shut down in January 2016. This latest survey collected 502 responses from book bloggers or people who blog about books (in most cases, authors).

The survey was posted on my book blog (http://sugarbeatsbooks.com) and advertised on my social media streams, through Facebook ads and in ads in several reading/book related online magazines.

The purpose of this survey was two-fold:

to serve as a follow up to my previous survey (carried out in late 2012), and

to gather current information on the thoughts and opinions of book bloggers almost 3 years after the original survey.

The survey of book bloggers in 2012/3 was hastily put together and mostly meant to satisfy my curiosity about my fellow book bloggers – not with an eye on publishing the results. When I started to read through the responses and analyze the results, I realized that I needed to write a book to help authors – it was apparent there was so much they didn’t know. The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers was born. Although I had done a great deal of writing in my various jobs, this book was my first foray into the publishing world.

To my great surprise, it has won awards, sold a large number of copies and I continue to get notes of thanks for sharing my information and providing help to new and experienced authors alike.

Over the intervening years, the world of book publishing has changed. The number of book bloggers has skyrocketed, and the pressure on authors to produce sales has only increased. Stories abound of bad behavior on the part of book bloggers as well as authors and publishing staff. Tempers are short and people everywhere are quick to point fingers.

One fact I discovered from my first survey was the lack of understanding on the part of authors. They are not taught to truly harness the power that book bloggers can bring to the promotional table and they aren’t taught how to interact with said book bloggers. The points of concern in 2012 were about lack of information. In this survey, I was curious as to whether the knowledge level had improved and I also wanted to get anecdotal information on the tension in the industry. I wanted to find out what respondents had to say about rude or abusive behavior.

A bit about me before we go on…I’ve been blogging as Sugarbeat’s Books since mid-2010. Although I tentatively walked into the world of book blogging, it’s a place that I belong. My book blog is an extension of myself and it has forever changed the way I read and the way I see the book world. My background is in science and technology. I spent 15+ years of my life after I finished a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Education, teaching at the post-secondary level. I then went on to spend 10 years as a technical trainer at the corporate level. Anything statistics related peaks my interest – for which I blame my outstanding stats teacher in second-year university. He taught the class how to statistically prove that black was white….but I digress.

It’s important to me to continually ask questions and to study areas of interest. I’m excited to share the results of my latest survey and I hope that you find use for the information within your world.

1

ABOUT THE SURVEY

In this chapter, we’re going to talk about the details of the survey. The survey consisted of 38 questions – a mixture of True/False, Multiple Choice and free format answer. It was hosted on Typeform.com – an online site that hosts surveys and allows them to be embedded in websites. Because of this, people could find the survey online or on the landing page of my book blog. The first response was collected the 18 th of September 2016, and the last one, January 12 th of this year. A total of 502 responses were collected.

Although there was an introductory paragraph to the survey, I question whether people really understood what they were getting into.

Unique Visits: 1219

Responses: 502

Completion: 41%

Avg Time to Complete: 9:32

As you can see from the above, although there were more than twelve hundred unique visits to the survey, I only received 502 completed responses, or 41% of the total. I received several notes of complaint over the duration of the survey. Some people complained about my choices of geographical identity and although several questions had a more than one response, that was missed by some responders. Some of the complaints about questions indicated that certain questions had not been read fully and the All of the above or More than one of the above answers had obviously been missed. We will talk about this in more detail when discussing relevant sections of the survey.

I was amazed at how intrepid the brave souls were who completed the survey on a smart phone! Not only were they speedy, but they had the highest completion rate. See the breakdown of the results below:

Unique Visits

PC & Laptop: 1029

Tablets: 51

Smartphones: 128

Other: 11

Responses

PC & Laptop: 413

Tablets: 25

Smartphones: 64

Other: 0

Completion

PC & Laptop: 40%

Tablets: 49%

Smartphones: 50%

Other: 0%

Average Time

PC & Laptop: 9:36

Tablets: 13:02

Smartphones: 7:49

Other: 0:00

You can see from the numbers above that people who filled out the survey on a tablet took significantly longer to complete it than the ones on a PC or laptop – I would assume that typing on a tablet is slower, but when compared to the people who tapped away on a smartphone, I’m not so sure typing speed was an issue.

Although I’m quite pleased by the number of respondents who completed the survey, I’m disappointed in the number who didn’t. When I do this again I will try to find a different format that is perhaps more user friendly.

2

THE QUESTIONS

Please find below, the questions of the survey along with the choices for answer where appropriate (in italic).

Survey Questions

1) Your Name (text)

2) What gender are you? (M/F)

3) What’s your email address? (email address)

4) What’s the URL of your Blog? (URL)

5) What platform do you use for your blog? (WP.com/WP.org/Blogger/Tumblr/WIX/Weebly/other or I don’t know)

6) What country do you live in? (US, UK, Asia, Europe, Canada, Australia, Africa, South America & Mexico)

7) What genre group of book bloggers do you associate yourself with best? (YA, Romance, Literary/Contemporary, Mystery/Thriller, Sci/Fi, Adult, LGBT, None of the above)

8) How long have you been book blogging? (less than 6 months, 6 months to 1 year, 1 to 2 years, 2 to 3 years, 3 to 4 years, 4+ years)

9) Why did you start blogging? (free format text answer)

10) How often do you post/week? (1-3 times/week, 4-5 times/week, 6+ times/week, other)

11) Do you accept review/feature submissions from authors/publishers? (yes/no)

12) Do you have a review/submission policy on your site? (yes/no)

13) Do you accept submissions via email or do you have a form for submissions? (email/form)

14) Do you feel that you give clear expectations to authors you feature? (yes /no)

15) Do you feel that your submission instructions are followed? (yes (usually), no (rarely), only some of the time)

16) How many review requests/submissions do you receive each month? (less than 10/month, 11 to 25/month, 26 to 50/month, 51 to 100/month, 101+, other)

17) Do you review/feature indie published books? (yes/no)

18) How many blogs do you post on/review for including your own? (1, 2, 3-5, 6+, none)

19) Do you participate in blog tours? (yes/no)

20) Do you post your reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, etc? (yes/no)

21) What other locations do you post reviews to? (Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Other, More than one)

22) What social media do you use because of your blog? (Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, More than one of the above)

23) Do you find that an author you are featuring promotes this on their social media? (yes/no)

24) Do you feel they know how/what to do? (yes/no)

25) Do you read other book blogs? (yes/no)

26) Do you sell advertising on your blog? (yes/no)

27) Do you use affiliate links on your blog? (yes/no)

28) What type of affiliate links do you use? (free format text)

The following questions have to do with form letters or mass mailing newsletters. These emails are addressed (either CC or BCC) to a large number of email addresses and are either personalized or start with a generic salutation such as Dear Blogger. They’re not individually created to suit your blog or your requirements instructions. With these questions, I’m not referring to promotional newsletters that you may have signed up for like BookBub, etc.

29) Do you like being put on PR firm or publishing house mailing lists? (yes/no)

30) Do you find yourself on mailing lists without your permission? (yes/no)

31A) Do you like getting review requests via form letters or mass mailing? B) Or do you just delete them? (free format text answer)

32) Do you pay attention to form letters? (yes/no)

33) How often do you accept a review request via a ‘Dear Blogger’ email? (Rarely, Hardly ever, Frequently)

34) How satisfied are you with your blogging experience? (free format text answer)

35) How serious are you about your blog? (free format text answer)

36A) Have you considered abandoning your blog? (yes/no)

36B) If so, why? (free format text answer)

37) Have you ever been a victim of aggressive behavior from another book blogger or author? (free format text answer)

38) If you could give an author one piece of advice about promoting their book, what would it be? (free format text answer)

A few editorial comments about the survey before I move on to the analysis of the results. Although I’m quite happy that I carried out the survey of book bloggers in late 2012, it was quickly thrown together and more about me satisfying my curiosity than any scientific or statistical significance.

I put more effort into this survey to gather information from as many bloggers as possible – also from as many countries and genre groups. I didn’t rely on my own social media circles to spread the word about the survey. Several times, I advertised on Facebook – targeting bloggers in other countries than the US or Canada – as well as advertising in two different literary magazines. I also own The Book Blogger List – a site that lists book bloggers according to genre of interest. During the time of the survey I created several hundred new listings for the site. As part of every confirmation note that I sent out, there was an invitation to complete the survey. These bloggers span every genre of interest, and frequently are from outside of North America. Lastly, word about the survey was spread by the book bloggers and book managers of my then publisher.

As we’ll talk about in the next chapter, I was lucky enough to have a respondent