Bookgroup Info Survey 2008

Very many thanks to all of you who completed our survey. It is very helpful to us to find out what you like and don't like about the site and to get your suggestions for improvements. Your positive comments are very encouraging and we will be working to include as many of your ideas as possible over the next few months.

Below is a summary of the responses:

The most popular pages of the site are the reviews (87% of respondents read them), news (69%) and competition (70%). There is also a lot of interest in the author interview (58%) and the Book Group of the Month (40%).

90.7% say our reviews influence your choice of books.

Only 27.8% of you buy books through the site.

This is for various reasons, the most often given is that you get your books from the library. There are others:

"Prefer to search for best price and free postage offers"
"Cheaper at Tescos or other supermarkets"
"Didn't realise I could but will do so in future"
"just not got the time; try to get from local library or charity shops"

For some it was for ethical reasons:
"i support my local independent bookshop"
"Because I prefer not to buy books from Amazon"

56% of you said you would be more likely to buy books directly from us (rather than from Amazon)

The incentives that would make you more likely to buy through the site were a member's discount (68%), a discount for multiple copies (34%) or a share of profits to charity (20%)

Others said:
"It's good to have the option to buy but I use it more for advice. Why buy books when I can have them for free or the price of postage. Saying that I do have a huge collection of books but mostly bought second hand. Recycle, recycle, recycle!"
"security from a shared computer"
"low delivery cost"
"I currently get nectar card points if I go through nectar so linking up to existing schemes such as that"

We asked if there was anything else you would like to see on the site or if there was anything you'd like us to do differently. These were some of your answers:

"No I love the site as it is, you could maybe talk about literary events or author signings around england and ireland"
"No, I like it."
"If possible would like to be able to search the reviews by genre."
"a link to other reviews on other websites"
"give info on any book/author related talks and where they are"
"I find it a very attractive & user-friendly site. Thank you"
"How about a short review of the current months commercial top ten books?"
"Keep up the good work. The reviews and information about books are fabulous. The only thing to do differently is to increase the amount of books being reviewed."
"Can be a bit confusing to navigate your way around the site so a clearer layout. Book swaps with other book group members"
"No, it's great as it is!"
"Everything to do with writers groups/ creative writing/ or links"
"Gets better all the time"
"could we participate, i.e. book reviews, opinions?"
"I think you site is very informative, although reading guides would be useful addition especially for more challenging books"
"more reviews"
"More insight into what other reading groups are currently reading"
"Bookgroups could give more feed back of what they have enjoyed and discovered - I found Jane Urquhart (might be spelled wrongly) as a result of our class reading Canadian novels and Jhumpa Lahiri when we did Indian"
"bookgroups in Europe"

We asked if you or your book group would like a web page of your own (where you could talk about books, arrange meetings etc) hosted free of charge on the site.
29% said definitely 'yes', 38% said they wouldn't and of the 31% who said maybe, they either wanted more details or needed to ask the rest of their group.