If you remember, a month ago I did a big survey among MM romance readers about all kinds of things. We talked about how many books you guys read, whether you’re into audio books, if you have KU, and much more. I thought it would be fun to share some of the results, so in this post, I’ll show some of the most remarkable data. So no weekly poll this week, but the results of the big reader survey.
With over 2,000 respondents, the number of readers who filled this out is high enough to draw some conclusions. The only caveat is that most of the readers were reached through Facebook, so readers who are not on social media but who do read MM romance are underrepresented, so that may have skewed some of the results.
Demographics
The basic demographics were as I had expected with 58% between 36 and 55 and another 20% between 26 and 35. And yes, the vast majority (87%) is cis female. So far, nothing new.
What was interesting, was that the “urban legend” is that most MM romance readers are straight, but the numbers show something else. Yes, the majority is straight, but it was only 56% in total, with the rest divided over a wide array of the rainbow, like bisexual (13%), pansexual (9%), and more. So it’s not quite so straight forward (see what I did there?) as rumors make us believe.
As expected, the bulk of MM romance readers are located in the US and the UK, but this may also be an area where the results are slightly skewed. Europe general (excl. UK and Germany) came third, followed by Australia and Canada.
Reading habits
This was where things got interesting. The numbers prove that MM romance readers are voracious! 24% read 5-6 books a week, and 15% read more than 7! That didn’t surprise me, but the numbers are still impressive. Even more when you take into consideration that according to this survey, half of the readers work fulltime.
And most of those books read are MM romances. 31% of readers only read MM and 31% read mostly MM. This, too, is something I recognize from what I see on social media from readers.
75% of the respondents has a KU subscription, and that number is almost exactly how much of my books are read through KU, so that lines up nicely.
What I thought was amazing, though it matches my own experience as well, is the number of unread MM romances on readers’ Kindles: 28% had over 100 while almost the same number had only a handful, and the rest was pretty evenly split along the various options. Only 6% had none. That’s my goal, haha. I have well over 100 right now…probably close to 200 if I had to take a guess.
I had expected most readers to keep track of what they read, but 40% doesn’t. That was one of the big surprises for me. The rest does keep track, either through Goodreads (33%), a notebook (6%), or another way.
A number that made me sad, was the next question: Do you usually leave a review? 28% said rarely or never, 21% said they tried but often forgot, and only 20% said most of the time. Reviews are so crucially important to us as authors, so that’s definitely something as authors to work on, to convince our readers to leave reviews.
Audio Books
I was curious about audio books, so the next two questions were about that. It showed what I had already suspected: people either love audio books or they hate/strongly dislike them. 32% of readers said they listened and loved audio books and 42% said they never listened. the rest was a sometimes. That pretty much aligns with the number of people who have an Audible subscription (33%).
Social Media
I also asked about social media, and that resulted in a ranking of the most popular social media that was pretty much as I had expected, with Facebook in the lead and Instagram second. But this is a question where the results will definitely have been skewed by the high number of surveys shared through Facebook, resulting in an overrepresentation of FB fans.
Unfortunately, way too many readers don’t know what BookBub is, so we have some ‘splaining to do there as authors because this is such a potentially important tool for us.
Conclusion
All in all, a lot of the results were as I had expected, but it was still good to see it confirmed in numbers. And I definitely spotted some surprises, so I learned something. A huge thanks to all the readers who filled this out!
PS I was interviewed on the Big Gay Author podcast about this survey. You can listen below. And make sure to check out their Big Gay Fiction podcast as well!
Hi. I found this survey interesting and I also participated, but I have a problem with the question of how many books we read a week. This question should be divided into three sections : full length novel 50.000 words or more, novella, and short stories. When I talk to my friends they often say that they’ve read a book and it turns out it was a short story. I read 3 to 4 full length novels a week, while working every day and that’s a lot.
Have a good day and stay safe 🙂🌹
I see your point, though I doubt many readers would consider a short story a book…or would read so many a week since there are only so many available. But the length of the book is not always easy to determine, unless the author mentions it specifically in the blurb. I mean, if the book is 174 pages, would readers know how many words that is? Besides, these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary. personally, anything under 60k is not a full novel for me, but I prefer longer books. Of course it would make a difference whether someone would read 10 35k books a week or 10 70k ones. But it would’ve been so much harder to estimate for readers. I think even without that detail, the answers speak volumes.
Very interesting!! I participated and am impressed with what the survey revealed. I’m also surprised that many don’t leave reviews. Sad.
Huge hugs and stay safe and healthy!
Thank you! Yeah, we’ll have to work on encouraging readers to leave reviews…
This is all so interesting to find out! I found the sexuality one really good to discover, I’m not as alone in my group as I thought 🙂
I was also surprised with the percentage of people who dislike/don’t listen to audiobooks. I find it a great way to catch up with books I either haven’t gotten around to reading or an extra way to enjoy ones that I love <3
Yeah, the sexuality one was something I suspected, but it was affirming to see it reflected in the numbers. As for audio books, it really is a love it or hate it, haha.
I find this survey really interesting. I am one that would like to track what I read, and would like to understand bookbub better.
I’ll be doing a post on BookBub soon to explain it. Stay tuned.
I’m not surprised about reviews. I know I only do a handful a year. I find that even if I love the book I feel uncomfortable or just don’t know what to say in a review. I rate all of them so I’ve gotten the “I like it” out of the way, and there’s often a character amount you have to achieve before its accepted. Short reviews aren’t allowed and if I don’t have enough to say I’m not able to submit. Or, I’ll finish at 1am and be too tired to do more than plug the kindle in. I’m not sure what would make reviews easier to leave? Better typing on kindle, not having a benchmark to achieve for word count, some sort of prompt, I don’t know. I’m more likely to mention I liked the book in a comment on Facebook. And if I liked it enough I’ll recommend it all the time when people ask and it fits.
This is exactly the problem I have too! It’s easy enough to do the stars, but I can never figure out what to write! I love doing reviews on BookBub when I can, because they do have the prompts that are easy to pick and choose what you liked about the book. But like you said, it’s not always convenient to switch from a Kindle to a computer to leave the review right away. It’s easy to forget details too when you read a lot of books, or because you have to leave the “book world” you were engrossed in back to reality.
Unfortunately, you hit the nail on the head when it comes to social media. Not everyone participates. And because of that we miss out on a lot of things. So many authors only use platforms such as Facebook for more than their basic weekly newsletters. We miss out on free books, extra chapters, polls etc that are not available to everyone. Those of us not on social media understand this, but it is still frustrating. I know authors primary job is writing books (yea) and Facebook, is the easiest way to reach the most people, but I can only hope some day that will change. In the meantime, please continue to write the wonderful books you do (can’t wait for Irresistible Omegas 9) and that will definitely go a long way to making me a happy person.