In a fascinating study shared by The Reading Room, men were found to be quicker to judge a book they’re reading than women are.
The study was performed by Jellybooks, who used a bit of JavaScript in eBooks that measured reading habits of volunteers. By breaking down that data, they Jellybooks determined that men stopped reading books at an earlier point than women did. This suggests that men are quicker to decide whether they like a book.
Interestingly, the study shows no notable difference in the completion rates of most types of books. In other words, women and men were equally likely to toss a book aside before finishing it – but men made that decision having read fewer pages.
One way of looking at this is to say that women give books more of a chance than men. On the flip side, it also means that men are more likely to stick by a book once they’re a certain portion of the way through it.
This present a unique challenge for writers. In Jellybooks founder Andrew Rhomberg’s analysis, writers have only 20 to 50 pages to capture [male readers’] attention.
Interestingly enough, all of these conclusions apply more or less equally to all types of books – with the notable exception of books that deal with feelings, which include books about emotions like grief, loss and love, but also books about relationships in general and romance in particular. On these books, men’s completion rates dipped below women’s.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the gender of the author doesn’t seem to matter – only that of the reader.
You can check out Rhomberg’s full write-up of his company’s results over at Digital Book World.
The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
Please share your opinions with Nicholas 😀
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Smorgasbord - Variety is the Spice of Life. said:
Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Head over to Nicholas Rossis and let him know your view on this finding that men make their mind up about a book in fewer pages than women!! I think it is a bit like shopping.. don’t shoot me.. Women like to browse and window shop before making up their mind.. Men make a list – go in and get the item – and get out of the place as quickly as possible….
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j1818 said:
Reblogged this on Book Junkie Reviews and commented:
Do men and women “read” differently?
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Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Check out this post. This is probably true of my own reading habits.
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MRS N, the Author said:
Fascinating! Although, I’m not surprised by the results. I guess as writers and authors, we better make it interesting in the first 20 pages or we might miss out. 😉
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Quite right! 😀
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Bookwraiths said:
Not terribly surprised by the results here, but the fact the author’s gender didn’t make any difference did surprise me. I’ve read so many editorials citing “men only buy male authors” that I assumed it would translate into this area as well.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
It was a surprising research all right!
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dgkaye said:
Fascinating stuff here, thanks. 🙂
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thanks 🙂
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kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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