BOOKS ARE "ALIEN AND UNATTRACTIVE"

Trade 'excludes' 20m readers

Publishers, retailers and librarians are missing out on a potential market of 20m consumers because the book world is too intimidating, according to research conducted by HarperCollins, the Trade Publishers Council and the National Year of Reading (NYR).

The research, to be published this week, looked at attitudes to books in the C2DE socio-economic group, characterised as lower income, non-professional families and estimated at 20m in size.

It found that in many such families, books were seen as alien and unattractive, while reading was considered an anti-social activity for people who, as one respondent said, "don’t know how to live".

Choosing a book in shops and libraries was also a major obstacle for many, the research found, with many of the codes and references setting out where books were located being off-putting for this segment of the population.

Commenting on the research, NYR project director Honor Wilson-Fletcher said: "These are good solid families who don’t have literacy problems but who just don’t read. They are one step away from book-buying - they do consume lots of leisure products and may have 2-300 DVDs in the house.

"But intentionally or otherwise, a lot of people involved in the book world are conveying the impression that reading is associated with a particular area of society and lifestyle."

Meanwhile the NYR’s end-of-year report, published today (24th March), reveals that the year succeeded in significantly upping the number of parents in its target market who read to their children every day.

Research commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) showed a 5% increase during the year in the number of parents in the C2DE group reading to their child every day, up from 15% in March 2008 to 20%. Fathers who read to their children are also reading more often (up from 19% to over 25%).

Meanwhile 7 out of 10 C2DE children are now library members, compared to fewer than 6 out of 10 at the beginning of the year. The research was based on 2,000 interviews with children and their parents.

Wilson-Fletcher said the results had been achieved predominantly through the national library membership initiative and campaigns like Bedtime Reading and Telling Tales. However she added that much remained to be done.

"Nine months of campaigning with a small budget has not changed overall habits," she said. "The fact is we’ve only just started, so it’s important to keep going [through the Reading for Life programme]."

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/81021-trade-excludes-20m-readers.html