Smart Bitches Business Update: November 2016

Welcome to the Smart Bitches Business Update, our monthly feature wherein I talk about the site, the community within it, and what’s going on in the business side of things.

In past columns, I’ve talked about where you are all (a lot of places!), how many of you there are (a lot), how the site runs, and other behind-the-scenes aspects of keeping the Hot Pink Palace afloat on fuchsia seas under coral skies with teal seagulls that are trained not to rain turds upon us as we read.

That imagery got out of hand.

One aspect of the site community that I have yet to talk about is gender, and there’s a pretty simple and also complicated reason for that. Google Analytics uses binary gender identifies, so the data I have is “male” or “female.” According to Google, if you’re curious, the site gender stats read as follows:

• 86.62% female
• 13.38% male

But I also think that Google Analytics isn’t fully equipped to really represent the Bitchery community, because as I’ve learned, male/female binary doesn’t represent the full range of gender identities in the world.

Why is this important at all? Well, it is and it isn’t. Romance is heavily gendered reading, and I believe it’s relevant, especially as the way in which we express our own gender changes and evolves. I know romance is, as a genre, largely written by, written about, produced by, and consumed by people who most often identify as women, but I also know an increasing number of folks who don’t identify in that way who are just as eager to read and read more. The Google Analytics gender binary representation didn’t fully encompass who we are as a community.

So this led me to: the SBTB Reader Survey.

The first rule of SBTB Reader Survey is: You’re absolutely not required to answer any of it. 

The second rule of the SBTB Reader Survey is: I’m not selling this data. I mean, I’d be shocked if someone wanted to buy it, but I’ve been wrong before. Either way, I fully intend to share the data results with you because pie graphs are SUPER ADDICTIVE.

Mmm. Pie.

I developed the questions on gender with the help of this resource from the Human Rights Campaign. 

More than anything, I want to stress that I hope this survey does not make you feel unwelcome. You’re welcome here no matter how you identify or whether you answer the survey. I merely want to try to understand the community better, and share that information with you. If there’s a way I could have built these questions better, please let me know.

So! We would like to know more about you. And to make this less onerous, we’re dividing it into parts. This month: who are you, how much do you read, and when? Next month, we’ll ask about book buying, book borrowing, and other booky-type things.

And, as always, random community geographical data!

This past month, the country that spent the most time on the site: St. Lucia, at over 45 minutes, and the US Virgin Islands, at over 26 minutes. If someone was perhaps on vacation in the USVI, I hope you had a great time. And speaking of the Caribbean, St. Helena posted the most pages read per session – howdy, folks!

Thank you for being here. Whether you fill out the survey or not, I’m glad you hang out with us. Thank you for being part of Smart Bitches.