Millennials Prefer Print Books and Bookstores, Survey Finds

Shelf Awareness

A Publishing Technology survey of 1000 millennials in the U.S. found that 79% of consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 read a print book in the last year, while 46% had read an e-book on a tablet and only 31% had read an e-book on a dedicated e-reader. Millennials also reported reading e-books on phones (36%) and computers (37%).Millennials prefer to acquire print books from physical bookstores: 52% of respondents said they preferred to buy from chain bookstores, while 45% said they preferred used bookstores, and 53% said they preferred to check out books from libraries. 
Only 40% of respondents, meanwhile, said they preferred online retailers. And when it came to purchasing e-books, 57% preferred to use an app. 42% would rather buy directly on their devices, and 22% wanted to use subscription services.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are still important, even for millennials: 45% of respondents said they learn about new books offline. By comparison, 34% and 32% said that they heard about new books mostly on social media and website browsing, respectively. Only 25% said that they discovered new books while browsing libraries and bookstores. 54% of millennials also recommend books and discuss books offline, and only 20% and 18% discuss books on social media and in online communities, respectively.

Full survey results can be found here from Publishing Technology.