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Elfwreck · 01-12-2012, 08:06 PM

Notes about survey:

I know some people whose gender doesn't fit neatly into "male" or "female." (Why does it matter to you?)
"Place of Residence - Population" should probably say "city or town of residence" because my state is also my place of residence. (And some people might well think you mean "district" or "region.")
"What percentage of music have you purchased in a digital form during the last year? (in contrast to traditional CDs)" was confusing to me. I have purchased no music, digital or otherwise, in the last year.
ebooks-vs-print books was also hard: I've purchased both. I assume the percentage is by dollar value, rather than number of units? Even so, I've purchased only one *new* pbook, the kind that pay royalties, in the last year. (Which, ah, cost over $100. I have no use for print books that aren't intended to outlast me.) Be aware that if your survey is including "books I bought from eBay and used at garage sales" (which I assume it does), the results won't meaningfully connect to any kind of publishing sales trends.
I wound up checking a lot of "I don't buy digitized music" even though I have done so in the past; I think it'd skew the survey badly to answer the questions about my buying preferences to cover the one or two songs every year or two that I buy. (I occasionally buy used CDs. And I'm not tired of listening to my current collection.)
"In which stores have you purchased digitalized music and books online?" was troublesome. I've bought MP3s at Amazon, but not ebooks.

I'm not sure what the point was of conflating ebook and digital music purchases; the demographics and amounts are so drastically different, I can't see useful information coming out of putting them together.

01-12-2012, 08:06 PM	#4
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,187 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	Notes about survey: I know some people whose gender doesn't fit neatly into "male" or "female." (Why does it matter to you?) "Place of Residence - Population" should probably say "city or town of residence" because my state is also my place of residence. (And some people might well think you mean "district" or "region.") "What percentage of music have you purchased in a digital form during the last year? (in contrast to traditional CDs)" was confusing to me. I have purchased no music, digital or otherwise, in the last year. ebooks-vs-print books was also hard: I've purchased both. I assume the percentage is by dollar value, rather than number of units? Even so, I've purchased only one new pbook, the kind that pay royalties, in the last year. (Which, ah, cost over $100. I have no use for print books that aren't intended to outlast me.) Be aware that if your survey is including "books I bought from eBay and used at garage sales" (which I assume it does), the results won't meaningfully connect to any kind of publishing sales trends. I wound up checking a lot of "I don't buy digitized music" even though I have done so in the past; I think it'd skew the survey badly to answer the questions about my buying preferences to cover the one or two songs every year or two that I buy. (I occasionally buy used CDs. And I'm not tired of listening to my current collection.) "In which stores have you purchased digitalized music and books online?" was troublesome. I've bought MP3s at Amazon, but not ebooks. I'm not sure what the point was of conflating ebook and digital music purchases; the demographics and amounts are so drastically different, I can't see useful information coming out of putting them together.