On the ECPA (@ecpa) website, David Kinnaman (@davidkinnaman), president of Barna Group (@barnagroup), says new research shows pastors love books. “One of the nation’s most loyal book-buying audiences, 92% of all pastors in the US say they buy at least one book every month, and they average 3.8 books per month. That’s anywhere from 12 to 46 books a year. Compare that to the total population, where only 29.3% of American adults buy more than 10 books in the course of a year.”
· Pastors, as a group, purchase between 8 million and 13 million books every year.
· Pastors influence others — their staffs, boards, and congregants — to buy books.
· Many pastors say they want to support the business and ministry of Christian retailers. But this sentiment — particularly for bricks and mortar Christian retail — is changing with the generations. Younger pastors are leading the shift to online buying, with 57% of Buster pastors (ages 28-46) expressing a preference for online.
· When a pastor selects a ministry-related book, the most important factor, by a wide margin, is the topic. 58% of pastors say topic is the most important factor, while only 15% give top priority to the author of the book. This is consistent across all generations and across all church sizes.
· By a large margin, pastors in the US prefer to read books in hardcover (55%). Only 24% prefer paperback, and 16% prefer digital.
· E-reading devices have tripled in their penetration among pastors in the last 2 years.
Also see our previous blogpost, “Study: Christians are Embracing Tablets & E-readers” and other posts tagged research.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach pastors with your book and brand message.
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