{"id":4112,"date":"2015-03-09T07:25:02","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T11:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4112"},"modified":"2015-03-09T07:28:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T11:28:02","slug":"a-cozy-arrangement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4112","title":{"rendered":"A Cozy Arrangement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookconsumer.com\/store\/product.php?id=102\">Murder, She Read<\/a>, is a research report from Nielsen Book Research (a copy will set you back $1,500), on the book-buying preferences and habits of some 6000 nationally representative U.S. mystery\/crime readers. The researchers defined \u201cmystery\/crime\u201d as<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>a genre of fiction typically focused on the investigation of a crime. Mystery fiction is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction\u2014in other words, a novel or short story in which a detective (either professional or amateur) investigates and solves a crime mystery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a more restrictive definition than most, but a lot of books fit it. Highlights of the study results:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div id=\"attachment_4114\" style=\"width: 267px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4114\" class=\" wp-image-4114\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/2320356657_02fde3ccf7_z.jpg?resize=257%2C215\" alt=\"cat reading\" width=\"257\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/2320356657_02fde3ccf7_z.jpg?w=566&amp;ssl=1 566w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/2320356657_02fde3ccf7_z.jpg?resize=359%2C300&amp;ssl=1 359w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 257px) 100vw, 257px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4114\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(photo: raider of gin, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Most \u201cmystery\u201d readers (70%) are female<\/li>\n<li>The biggest age group of mystery readers (28%) comprises people 65 and older, with almost half of mystery readers 55 and older and<\/li>\n<li>Many mystery readers are not actually buying their books; they\u2019re getting them free.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The gender and age concentrations revealed come as no surprise. Month after month, I see lists of the mysteries agents and publishers are signing. Their decisions are creating and reinforcing this important audience, and its dominance is an effect of the choices they make.<\/p>\n<p>I certainly don\u2019t want to suggest there shouldn\u2019t be books geared to the older female demographic, but mysteries that involve clever kitties, cutesy shops, knitting patterns, and recipes not only succeed in appealing to one specific group but also fail to develop new communities of interest.<\/p>\n<p>Authors can\u2014and do\u2014write novels that appeal to both men and women. And many women readers devour books by Michael Connelly, Tana French, Ian Rankin, and Laura Lippman just as much as men do. However, a focus on novels with marketing appeal to only one segment of the population (and a low- or non-paying one at that) may prove counterproductive in the long run. I hope authors and publishers read the Nielsen findings as a call to reach out to tomorrow\u2019s audiences\u2014readers who will be as loyal and enthusiastic as the older woman audience is today.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; overflow: hidden;\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><a style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com\/2015\/03\/writing-quote-modern-women-crime.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.zemanta.com\/329575645_80_80.jpg?w=584\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 83px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; background-image: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com\/2015\/03\/writing-quote-modern-women-crime.html\" target=\"_blank\">Writing Quote: Modern Women Crime Novelists<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Murder, She Read, is a research report from Nielsen Book Research (a copy will set you back $1,500), on the book-buying preferences and habits of some 6000 nationally representative U.S. mystery\/crime readers. The researchers defined \u201cmystery\/crime\u201d as a genre of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4112\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Cozy Arrangement - are mystery publishers limiting the genre's appeal?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,40,174,63,3,68,4],"tags":[412,419],"class_list":["post-4112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-detective","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-marketing","category-mystery","category-publishing","category-readers","tag-mystery","tag-publishing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-14k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4116,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4112\/revisions\/4116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}