Why do people buy books?

It's a fairly crucial question for the publishing industry: why do people buy books? New research commissioned by The Bookseller shows that the most important factor in driving UK shoppers to buy books is an instore display. That's a little bit disappointing for independent publishers who can't afford to pay for prominent instore placement and have to rely more on word of mouth or internet marketing.

The Bookseller research surveyed more than 1,000 people across the UK, and the results are below:

26% instore displays
14% newspaper and magazine reviews
13% mentions on television or radio
12% recommendations from friends and family
9% internet recommendations
2% the advice of shop staff or librarians

For some reason the percentages only seem to add up to 76, so who knows where the other 24% get their book buying habits from. If you're stumped for a recommendation, why not buy this?

Paul