Survey Thoughts

**"Doreen Howard" d*@ticon.net**

After finally finding the time to read the March GWA Survey in depth, I've
come away with some thoughts.  I throw them out for discussion, etc.  If you
have only read the Executive Summary, do yourself a favor and wade through
the graphs and charts.  They are very enlightening.

1.  Edibles are surging--not surprising, as Lon already said considering the
economy and war, but there's more.  It seems like the 25 to 44 year old
category has more interest than in the past, and these people are urban and
suburban.  Hispanics and blacks have more interest than high-earning whites.
All these stats tell me that vegetable and fruit articles will sell best in
general interest magazines, sold on grocery store check-out stands and
inserted in the Sunday paper than in garden magazines.  The best part is
that many generic magazines have higher circulation and pay more per word or
project.  There was a time--1980's and the first year or two of the
1990's--when it was exactly these kinds of magazines that bought gobs of
instant veggie garden and plant your own mini-orchard articles.

2.  The more money people have, the less interested in growing edibles they
are.  Their garden dollars go to high-end, exotic and unusual plants. Plants
are decorating tools to increase property value, enhance outdoor living
space and add status.  The garden centers know that and stock accordingly.
So...it would be useless to pitch a tomato article to Garden Design or
Horticulture, even if they bought such material from you previously.  Follow
the money, as that renown philosopher of the 20th century, Deep Throat,
said.

3.  If you look at who is buying what, it seems that the big boxes and
discount stores will be selling more vegetable seeds and transplants than
the specialty garden centers.  They, in turn, will be stocking perennials,
interesting annuals, landscape hard structure and exotics.  To pick up extra
money, I'd approach the appropriate retail entity to give talks on a
30-minute veggie garden or fool-proof perennials.  I'd also volunteer to
answer questions on a given Saturday.  You can use the opportunity to sell
your latest book, pitch your newspaper column or publicize yourself buying
calling the local TV station for coverage.

4.  If you have a container book in the market now, congratulations.  You
are in the right place at the right time.  If you want to write a container
book, the statistics say it's not a good idea.  The interest in that
specialty is waning--not in a big way--but by the time you'd have a book in
the market, it wouldn't sell well.  Of course, I could be wrong, but that's
what I read in all the graphs and charts.

5.  I wish the polling company would have asked people where they get their
gardening information--plant tags, nursery info sheets, newspapers, books,
Internet, etc.  That would have been extremely helpful to us.  Hopefully,
that question will be in the next survey.

Thanks for letting me ramble.
Doreen Howard

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