B N C R ES EARCH
Reading Together Book Clubs in Canada
Reading Together: Book Clubs in Canada
Table of Contents
4
Introduction
5
Highlights
6
Anatomy of a book club
13
Book club picks
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Making a better book club
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Looking for more research?
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About BookNet Canada
PREPARED BY BOOKNET CANADA STAFF © BOOKNET CANADA NOVEMBER 2019
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Reading Together: Book Clubs in Canada
Introduction Book clubs, they’re everywhere. It’s not just people in your community throwing together a potluck to talk about a book with some of their friends (though it’s definitely still that), now online clubs mean people don’t have to leave their house, news outlets are creating their own clubs, and even celebrities other than Oprah are getting in on the cachet that founding a book club bestows. We know from our consumer surveys that 4% of adult, English-speaking Canadians belonged to a book club or reading group in 2018. That percentage rose to 7% when we confined the question to only include respondents who had bought a book in the previous 12 months. When we looked at our mid-year data from 2019, the percentage of Canadians who belonged to a book club or reading group jumped to 6%. For all book buyers in the first half of 2019, it increased to 14%. These big jumps in book club membership numbers drew our attention and made us want to know more about the enigma that is book clubs. How do members find each other? What do they read? Where do they get their books? How do they hear about the books they suggest to their clubs? We surveyed book club members across Canada to find answers to those and other questions. We fielded the online survey in early October 2019. We asked 2,463 Canadians 18 and over whether they belonged to a book club, book group, or reading group that meets regularly in person or online to talk about books. From that group of roughly 2,500 people, 25% said yes. Those 500 book club members became our survey respondents. With a sample size of 500, there is a margin of error of +/- 4.39%. This means that answers could fluctuate about 4% in either direction if this survey were fielded to the entire Canadian population. The confidence level in these survey results is 95%: If we run this survey 100 times to Canadians 18 and over, the answers will fall between our margin of error 95 times.
PREPARED BY BOOKNET CANADA STAFF © BOOKNET CANADA NOVEMBER 2019
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Reading Together: Book Clubs in Canada
Anatomy of a book club Demographics Who are the Canadians who belong to book clubs? Book club members are more likely to be women (63%) than men (37%). More than half of all book club members (55%) are between 25 and 44 years old.
Ages of book club members 18-24
12%
27%
25-34
35-44
45-54
27%
55-64
65+
15%
13%
5%
Just under two thirds of book club members have at least one child (60%). One third have a four-year degree (33%) and 23% have a household income between $100,000 and $200,000. Book club members are also more likely to be partnered than not: 64% are either married, engaged, or living with a significant other. In terms of distribution across Canada, the majority of members reside in Ontario (44%), 14% live in Quebec, 14% live in Alberta, and 13% live in British Columbia.
Belonging to clubs Most of the book club members we surveyed only belonged to only one book club (69%), while 19% belonged to two clubs, and 12% belonged to three or more. Those 65 and over mainly belonged to one club. Of the members who belong to two clubs, 36% are 25 to 34 years old, 23% are 35 to 44, and 18% are 45 to 54. When we get to those who belong to many clubs, 35- to 44-year-olds are making up the bulk of those who belong to four clubs (40%), five clubs (83%), and six or more (50%). Interestingly, while a majority of the survey respondents were women (63% female, 37% male), and women made up the majority of members who belonged to one (68%) or two (56%) book clubs, those who belonged to three or more clubs were overwhelmingly men. When broken down by gender, 57% of people who belonged to three or more clubs were men (remember that men made up only 37% of the survey respondents and the margin of error means that this percentage can fluctuate between 33% and 41%). We had a lot of questions we wanted to ask about book clubs and member behaviour, and in order to do that, we had to have our survey respondents narrow their focus to their main book clubs. We asked them to choose the one they attended most often, or in the event of a tie, their favourite, and answer the rest of the survey with that main book club in mind.
PREPARED BY BOOKNET CANADA STAFF Š BOOKNET CANADA NOVEMBER 2019
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Reading Together: Book Clubs in Canada
“Books are awesome! Share them with people and make a group!” “I love my book club; couldn’t imagine life without it.”
Joining book clubs Where did Canadians hear about their book clubs? The most popular way was through someone they know (45%). Other popular ways to hear about book clubs were through social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. (33%); an online community or website, like Goodreads, Meetup, Nextdoor, etc. (26%); or a neighbourhood community board (22%). Then there are the 11% of respondents who didn’t hear about their main book club — they started it. Among these founders, we discovered that more men than women started their own book club (53% men vs 47% women). Members aged 25 to 34 are also overrepresented — though they made up 27% of overall survey respondents, they accounted for 40% of those who started their own club. The majority of book clubs that we heard from were completely free to members, however 13% had a membership fee. We wanted to know what motivated people to join book clubs. Was it for the mental stimulation? The social aspect? Is it true that there are only two types of book clubs, “the kind that talk about the book and the kind that don’t?” It turns out our survey respondents were driven to belong to a book club mainly to talk about books. About two thirds (64%) of respondents chose that as one of the reasons they joined. The second most popular reason was to be exposed to new books (56%). The social reasons ranked a bit lower: meeting new friends (50%), connecting with existing friends (39%), and talking about life (31%). The reasons for joining were the same for both men and women. So even though the idea of book clubs as social gatherings with a side of books may be a prevalent stereotype, it turns out that Canadians really are in it to talk about and learn about new books.
PREPARED BY BOOKNET CANADA STAFF © BOOKNET CANADA NOVEMBER 2019
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