Where can i look up gender and income class statistics showing who buys the NY Times bestsellering novels?

Answer 1

This is not what you are looking for, but there are very interesting statistic links that have to do with books on this website.

http://www.parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm

Answer 2

I would venture a guess that the profile of a NY times bestseller buyer would be very similar to the average book buyer. Because mose book buyers buy NYtimes bestsellers at one time or another, whether by concious choice or just by accident.

do you have any reason to believe the profiles would be different?

Answer 3

Aside from possibly getting statistics from booksellers who use member cards, I don't really see a way. (And if B&N is tracking my book purchases and giving them to outside people, I'd be pretty mad, because book people get mad about stuff like that.)

But you're pretty much looking at a) people who buy a book because it's a bestseller/because it's popular/because they saw it on Oprah, and b) people who buy books anyway and don't care about the popularity. One way or the other, there are people who buy books and people who don't; I'd start there, and that would probably give you a very decent cross-section.