Amazon recently issued a press release that said it was revealing “the most well-read cities in
America.” The only problem is the list
was not accurate.
First,
it doesn’t reveal the key determination of who makes the list. It did not clearly state the list is based on
sales of its products only. Think about
it, if you bought a book from an independent bookstore, Barnes & Noble,
Target, or from KOBO, it didn’t register in this study.
Second,
it only registered sales of newspapers, magazines, and books, and not free
downloads of books or of books borrowed at libraries. It didn't measure reading consumption, only Amazon sales.
Something
is obviously wrong when the survey’s results list the supposed Top 20 most
well-read cities and absent are No. 1 market, New York City, No. 2 market, Los
Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and not a single city in the third-most populated
state, Florida.
Amazon
listed the top cities and surprise, surprise, it’s headquarter-home of Seattle
topped the list. That’s probably just a coincidence, right?
Their
big 10 includes:
1.
Seattle.
Washington
2.
Portland,
Oregon
3.
Washington,
D.C.
4.
San
Francisco, California
5.
Austin,
Texas
6.
Las
Vegas, Nevada
7.
Tucson,
Arizona
8.
Denver,
Colorado
9.
Albuquerque,
New Mexico
10.
San
Diego, California
Not
to beat this horse to death, but the release issued no details or data as to
how the list was compiled. Was it based
on total units sold (does a newspaper equal a book?)? Was it based on total dollar sales of
materials (or was it based on total number of unique individuals purchasing materials?) What if things were purchased but sent
elsewhere as gifts – does that count towards the city that received the book or
purchased it?
I
know, I know, so many questions for a silly fluff piece, but the bigger
question is why do we even pay attention to a survey that’s obviously flawed or
biased? My concern is that the weight of
the Amazon name sways others to buying into the list without giving it any
further thought.
Let’s
face it, Amazon doesn’t care which cities are named or what criteria was used,
it just wants to get its name out there in a positive way, so it can position
itself as the book central, as the authority of all content.
But
it’s not so. Plenty of books, magazines and newspapers are bought or shared
through non-Amazon sources. We need to keep the marketplace diverse and
to have content sold via many sources and from many physical and virtual
locations.
Amazon, though a significant player in the book market is not The Book Market, and thus, its press releases and surveys need to be clearer when making bold statements about all readers and content consumers.
Amazon, though a significant player in the book market is not The Book Market, and thus, its press releases and surveys need to be clearer when making bold statements about all readers and content consumers.
Interestingly, Amazon seems to contradict its own list. Just three years ago they issued the list and it looked a lot different. Seattle was No. 13. How did they leapfrog so many spaces so quickly? In fact, not one of the top 10 from 2013 made the top 10 in 2016. How’s that?
The
more respected list that’s been issued for a while is the non-commercial one
put out by Central Connecticut State University. It ranks cities by how literate they are. It
doesn’t judge test scores nor tally sales of content. Instead, it looks at
cities (77) with 250,000+ people, and examines their access to six areas:
library systems, bookstores, digital readership, educational attainment, and newspapers
and other publications, including books.
Only
four cities in the top 10 most-literate study can be found an Amazon’s top
10. For the record, the most recent
study showed Minneapolis, DC, Seattle, St. Paul, and Atlanta as being the best
five cities for literacy.
Whatever
these surveys show it’s clear there’s no singular way to approach this. We also know that regardless of these
surveys, we need to increase book sales, improve literacy, and make the written
word a vailuable thing to all.
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