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More than four in five of Young Adult books bought in the US last year were by people aged over 17, according to figures released by research firm Bowker, presented at yesterday's (24th March) Tools of Change Bologna conference.
Just 16% of all YA titles (both print and digital) were purchased by 13-17-year-olds, according to Kristen McLean, c.e.o. and founder of analysts Bookigee, which runs the biannual Bowker survey into the children's market.
The majority of YA books—62%—were bought by those aged between 18-44, 35% by 18-29s and 27% by 30-44s. McLean said: "The interesting thing is they are largely buying these for themselves—94% of YA books bought by 18-29s are for themselves, just 6% are gifts. For the 30-44s around 80% are buying the books for themselves."
McLean added: "This does raise a lot of questions about the future of the 'teen' market when over 80% of your market are adults."
The study also looked into 13-17-year-olds' reading behaviour, which points to a plateauing of digital reading. Twenty-nine percent of teens surveyed said they read e-books, the same percentage when Bowker conducted the survey in spring 2012. Just over 66% of American teens said they preferred to read in print, level with the autumn 2011 edition of the survey.
In regards to the future, 57% of teens said they will mainly be reading print, up three percentage from the spring 2012, while those who said they will mainly read e-books dropped a marginal 1% to 10%.
The survey was from a panel of 6,000 people.