Final Book Format Poll Results

Finally, the informal book format poll results are in.

The poll closed sometime ago, so it's too late now to try to enter it. When the poll was active, I asked you what book format you preferred for reading books. I blogged about it here as follows:

"What's all the buzz about the different formats for books? What's the best format to offer to book readers? As a writer, I need to know the answer, whether in the future I'll be providing copy for ink on paper, electronic readers, or computer screens, etc. It probably won't affect the content but it may determine how I decide to present the information and how you will receive it. So, I went searching for the answer and asked the question on a few of my networking sites, including this blog."

Results

The results for this informal poll are in. Here they are:

1. Traditional books
10 votes 66.6%
2. Ebooks (for electronic readers i.e., Kindle and the like)
3 votes 20.0%3.
3. Online (reading from the computer screen)
1 vote 6.6%
4. Audiobooks
1 vote 6.6%
5. PDF books
0 votes 0%
6. I don't read books
0 votes 0%

Numbers were rounded off.

Comments
Are you surprised? I thought more people would vote for ebooks. But what was even more interesting were the comments as to why readers voted the way they did.

--Most favored traditional books because of the "comfort factor" (ability to get comfortable with the book), for underlining, and making notes in the margins. They said they liked the covers, as well as the look and feel of paper books.

--Some said ebooks were more economical than traditional books, others said not so.

--Several said audio books were hard to focus on--their minds kept wandering.

--Others did not enjoy reading online and said PDF's cost more than books because they had to be printed out.

Most acknowledged that ebooks are the future but thought they would only get an electronic reader when they felt absolutely compelled to do so.

These poll results tell me that for the time being, a traditional paper book is preferred by the vast majority of my readers.

Many thanks to those who took part in this informal poll. It's been a lot of fun for me and an eye opener as well. I hope it has been for you also.