The gift giving season is upon us and many people are going to be buying books for their friends and loved ones. According to new research people have bought more books this year to give away as gifts than they did in 2014.
Nielsen Book Research has just released new data for the United Kingdom and they found that one in six people said they were likely to give more books this Christmas compared to last year. Younger consumers, and especially those with children, are both more likely to buy and to buy more books – suggesting a growth at Christmas might be in children’s rather than adult books.
Jo Henry, vice president of insights and analytics at Nielsen Book Research, said: “Having a child in the household makes a huge difference, with 47% of those with children saying they were likely to give books as gifts this Christmas. Interestingly, 14% of those who hadn’t yet bought a book in 2015 said that they were likely to give books as gifts this Christmas – though a similar proportion of heavy book buyers said that they were not thinking of doing so.”
The increase in book sales are likely due to Super Thursday and Civilized Saturday events that received a ton of mass media attention. This is just what the book selling industry needs, to sell more books. In 2014 Nielsen data found that 15% fewer books were bought as Christmas presents than in 2013.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
