Pan Macmillan Insight · Audience Personas

Audience Compass

These personas are designed to support your thinking. They are comprehensive profiles built on robust behavioural data, defining audiences by their psychological need states: the emotional or practical reasons they choose a book or format.

Pick an audience, filter by author, genre or format, then click any card to dive into the full behavioural profile.

Adult Persona

Thinkers

Read as an intellectual pursuit

Highly educated readers who read to seek out information, satisfy their curiousity and broaden their horizons, viewing reading as an intellectual commitment and a form of cultural citizenship. They demand depth of research, systemic critique, historical weight, and masterful artistic craftsmanship.

GENRE

General Fiction: The core buyers of General Fiction (19.6% of adult fiction volume; 21.3% of print, 17.0% of e-books, and 10.3% of audio).

Historical Fiction: Core buyers of Historical Fiction (5.3% of adult fiction volume; 4.6% of print, 5.7% of e-books, and 3.1% of audio).

Classic Fiction: Core buyers of Classic Fiction (6.0% of adult fiction volume; 6.9% of print, 4.6% of e-books, and 3.6% of audio).

History & Military: In non-fiction, they drive History & Military (7.6% of adult NF volume; 7.8% of print and 6.9% of e-books).

Social Sciences/Humanities: They drive Social Sciences/Humanities (7.8% of adult NF volume; 7.6% of print, 7.9% of e-books, and 3.3% of audio).

Science: They drive Science (3.1% of adult NF volume; 3.0% of print and 3.7% of e-books).

General Interest Non-Fiction: When buying for children, they purchase General Interest Non-Fiction (12.7% of children's volume; 12.8% of print and 14.6% of e-books).

Demographics

Older Millennials, Gen X, Boomers (30–80+), equal gender split. Highly educated professionals, academics, civil servants. Anchored in cultural hubs and historic university cities (Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Bristol).

What drives them

Read to cut through the noise, make sense of complex global systems, deconstruct history, experience beautiful writing. Want to feel cultured, clever and challenged. They want factual detail, objective analysis and depth.

Preferred formats

HardbackPaperbackAudiobook

Buying behaviour

Treat books as intellectual artefacts. Primary audience for premium physical hardbacks and cloth-bound editions from independent bookshops and Waterstones. Avoid Kindle Unlimited. Audiobooks must be narrated by unhurried voices.

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Audience Compass

Connectors

Thinkers

Escapists

Solvers

Loyalists