Survey Results

Survey Results

Thanks to all of the subscribers who filled out our reader survey, which was mailed last fall to 3,674 individuals in the U.S. selected from our subscription list. We happily received 797 responses -- more than we had anticipated. As many people surmised from the nature of the questions, we are planning to expand our Web site (http://www.emerson.edu/ploughshares). The Web development project is being funded by a grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, and the new site will be launched in the fall of 2001. Yet, contrary to some readers' fears, we will continue to print Ploughshares in its present form; the Web site will be a supplement, not a replacement, for the existing journal.

Indeed, readers seem quite satisfied with the magazine as it is -- the guest-editor format, the balance of works -- although they are, in general, more partial to fiction than to poetry or nonfiction. They are voracious readers, of course, with 38% perusing more than twenty books of fiction a year, and 39% reading at least ten books of poetry. They are just as apt to buy their books online as they are in an independent or chain bookstore. Journals, however, are still typically ordered through the mail. Most first saw or heard about Ploughshares in a bookstore, through direct mail, or by word of mouth. Ploughshares also has a fairly strong pass-along value, with 88% of subscriber copies being read by friends or family. Our subscribers read many, many other magazines, citing 245 different literary titles and 340 commercial publications. Story, Glimmer Train, and Poets & Writers topped the literary list, and The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Atlantic Monthly headed the commercial list.

As expected, our readers have a strong creative writing bent or association: a total of 83% have participated in a writing program, conference, or class, either as students or teachers. Seventy-four percent have submitted manuscripts to magazines, 36% to Ploughshares. Demographically, 59% of our readers are female. Forty-eight percent are in the 35-54 age brackets, and 35% are over fifty-five. Ninety-two percent have bachelor's degrees or better, and 55% chose literature or creative writing as their main course of study. Twenty-four percent are writers by profession, and 20% are educators. Twenty-six percent have annual household incomes of $100,000 or more, 93% are Caucasian, and almost all are U.S. citizens. We have subscribers in every state: 41% in the Northeast, 19% in the South, 18% in the Midwest, and 22% in the West. The states with the most readers are Massachusetts (16%), California (13%), and New York (12%).

Eighty-two percent currently have Internet access, mostly from home, with an additional 15% expecting to be online within a year. Seventy-five percent check their e-mail daily, although they surf the Web less frequently. Since going online, 33% buy more books, yet 11% purchase fewer newspapers. Mostly they find Web sites through search engines and links; banner ads have almost no effect. When they search for literary subjects, sixty-six percent are looking for articles about authors, books, and writing, rather than for actual works of poetry or fiction. If they come across works of interest, 78% will read poems online immediately, but 89% will either print or bookmark stories to read later. Our subscribers listed 171 different literary Web sites that they visit, with Poetry Daily, Salon, and Poets & Writers on top. Of the 227 different non-literary sites mentioned, Amazon.com, The New York Times, and Yahoo! were the most popular. The features they'd most like to see on an expanded Ploughshares Web site are: literary news, stories and poems from past issues, submitting and writing tips, extensive literary links, book recommendations, and live chats with authors and editors. Hardly anyone would be willing to pay even a nominal fee to access these features, however.

These results were tabulated by John Andrews of D. Hilton Associates in Texas. The full report is available on our Web site at http://www.emerson.edu/ploughshares/survey.html.