"Kindle Culture" Now Available

I'm happy to announce that my new book "Kindle Culture" is now available for the Kindle at Amazon.com! Thanks to everyone in the Kindle community who helped out these past few months. Your support has been greatly appreciated. Here's the product description, which has yet to appear on the Amazon page but should soon.

"How influential and/or pervasive can the Kindle become? Does it have what it takes to join that exclusive group populated by the likes of the Hula-Hoop, the VW Bug and the iPhone and become the next bona fide cultural icon? Will the term 'Kindle' become as ubiquitous in describing e-readers in the future as Band-Aid has for adhesive bandages and Kleenex for facial tissue? And just how strong will the Kindle’s built-in marketing segment of evangelists be in counteracting the latest wave of 'Kindle killers' lurking on the horizon? I searched far and wide, from coast to coast of what currently constitutes Kindle Country to the far edges of the globe, to find out in his new book 'Kindle Culture.'

"'Kindle Culture' examines the social and cultural aspects of the Kindle through a series of stories about people whose lives have been changed by the popular e-reader, from a woman whose Kindle let her read again after almost ten years to a full-time business professional whose hobby of making Kindle covers has turned into a cottage industry he can't keep up with. Along the way you'll meet newlyweds, artists, librarians, hackers, bloggers, members of the clergy, anti-ereader groups and Kindle-defending celebrities, all with one thing in common--the Amazon Kindle."

Kindle Demographics

As I was pulling together the final pieces for my book "Kindle Culture," one of the last items on my list was to comb through almost 70 pages of the Amazon Kindle Forum's "Average Kindle Owner's Age" thread to get a better idea of who's actually buying the Kindle.

Though I ended up culling 1,387 responses from almost 1,700 posts, these charts don't adhere to polling science standards and should thus be taken with a grain of salt. That said, my methodology included the use of second-hand figures ("my son, 27, has one too"), and the exclusion of ill-defined ages ("I'm in my 50s"), questionable responses (106-year-old Sigmund Freud says, "I like the large type!"), and a handful of entries that were repeated one or more times.

The resulting data suggests that the largest group of Kindle owners by decade are in their 50s. The next two largest are owners in their 40s at 19.1% and owners in their 60s at 18%, making the total number of Kindle owners between the ages of 40 and 69 an incredible 58.6%. Owners above 70 make up an additional 8.1%, with owners under the age of 40 accounting for just over a third of all Kindle sales.

Using broader target demographic standards, the results look like this:

Younger adults (18-34) – 22%
Adults (35-54) – 38.4%
Older adults (over 54) – 37.3%

The Kindle might also be a popular 60th birthday present--more 60-year-olds reported owning the device than any other age, with 59-year-olds coming in a close second. (Another side note I found interesting was the number of respondents in their 20s and 30s who mentioned that they had been reading since a very young age.)

There are plenty of factors that could skew these results, ranging from affluency and disposable income to the overall age of visitors who visit Amazon's boards. But if these numbers are any indication, the Kindle appears to be the first general purpose technology device I know of with an early adopter demographic that favors the over-54 age bracket over the usual 18-34 group, effectively turning one perennial marketing trend on its head.