Americans love lists, statistics, and factoids that reveal some metric that they can compare themselves by.  If the numbers affirm their views, experiences, and circumstances they are happy.  If it appears they are better than average, they’re even happier. Out of ego, curiosity, or opportunity, we crave to know how we stack up against others. I recently came across stats on geography-based tendencies of Americans and wondered what this could mean for the book world.

For instance, in a recent New York Timespiece that highlighted findings from Facebook data that showed where users “check in when they are traveling abroad” the last four summers, a map can be constructed for each state.  Looks like Californians, Texans and a few other states each find Mexico to be the most popular overseas country. Oregon, Washington, and a few other states up north chose Canada.  But some states chose Liberia, Somalia, Ireland, Bolivia, Tonga and Marshall Islands.  Do these demographics help the book industry figure out how to market books regionally?