In an attempt to identify my readership demographic, I took a detailed look at the reviews received for The Black Orchestra. Here’s what I discovered:
| US | Female | Male | Both | All | Unknown |
| Total | 79 | 248 | 327 | 439 | 112 |
| No | 20 | 62 | 82 | 111 | 29 |
| Average | 3.95 | 4.00 | 3.99 | 3.95 | 3.86 |
| UK | Female | Male | Both | All | Unknown |
| Total | 23 | 82 | 105 | 120 | 15 |
| No | 5 | 20 | 25 | 29 | 4 |
| Average | 4.60 | 4.10 | 4.20 | 4.14 | 3.75 |
| US + UK | Female | Male | Both | All | Unknown |
| Total | 102 | 330 | 432 | 559 | 127 |
| No | 25 | 82 | 107 | 140 | 33 |
| Average | 4.08 | 4.02 | 4.04 | 3.99 | 3.85 |
Firstly, my overall readership is predominately male:
Male 59%, Female 18%, Unknown 23%
Splitting the unknowns evenly between the sexes gives:
Male 70%, Female 30%
Having said that, the group that gave the highest average rating (4.60) for the book was female readers in the UK. Admittedly this was a small group (23 reviews). It’s interesting that the group that gave the lowest average rating (3.85) is the “unknown” group, many of whom wrote their reviews under an anonymous name like “Amazon reader”.
Comparing the readership figures for the US / UK:
US: Male 56%, Female 18%, Unknown 26%
UK: Male 69%, Female 17%, Unknown 14%
Splitting the unknowns evenly again gives:
US: Male 69%, Female 31%
UK: Male 76%, Female 24%
The male bias is exaggerated in the UK (where the sample size is small).
It’s hardly a definitive study of the readers of the book, but it does give me some idea who I’m writing for.
