I recently asked our SAS Publishing Facebook fans a similar question. And today I’m curious enough to broaden the scope of this book buying investigation. I polled 17 willing SAS Publishing colleagues in this non-random poll and gave them an hour to share how they choose books.  Admittedly, I only provided 3 options in the Facebook poll. However, fans were allowed to write in additional reasons (although no one did).

Here are the results of the Facebook poll that 8 fans responded to:

And here’s the breakdown of the results from 17 SAS Publishing colleagues who responded to the slightly different question "How do you choose a book".  Multiple options could be selected. And while I did email a list of options that might influence book selection, some participants wrote in their own responses.

In looking at results from both polls, a few items seem notable to me. Keep in mind that I have a liberal arts background and that statistics was my most challenging college course. Please be gentle!

• When choosing between 3 options for "What helps you choose a book", only 2 out of 8 Facebook participants cited "hearing about a book from friends or coworkers." On the other hand,  10 out of 17 SAS Publishing responders cited that "recommendations from friends/family" influences why they choose a book. As Facebook is a social networking site, I thought the social aspect (selecting "recommendations from friends or coworkers") would be higher. However, 8 respondants certainly does not provide a representative sample of Facebook participants.
• In my email to colleagues, I forgot to include what I think is a very influential factor in helping readers choose a book - online reviews. Only one colleague wrote this in.
• While online searches and blogs influence my colleagues, I find it interesting (and I'm also happy to see) that browsing in physical bookstores or libraries is still very popular.

How do you choose books? Are you surprised by any results here? Share your comments and preferences with us!