Jump to content
aberdeen-music

The Big Chick Lit Survey - For the Fans and the Critics!


flip

Recommended Posts

Hi everyone!

I am currently doing a University dissertation on the critical success factors and criticism of Chick Lit. If anyone would like to help by filling out this survey it would be greatly appreciated. There are two surveys - one for fans of Chick Lit and another for those who dislike or do not read Chick Lit. Please complete the survey that applies to you by clicking on the following links...

Chick Lit Readers

The Big 'Chick Lit' Survey - Calling All Chick Lit Readers!

Non-Chick Lit Readers

The Big 'Chick Lit' Survey - For Non-Chick Lit Readers

Thank you, responses will be greatly appreciated :princess:

And feel free to leave any further comments on here too...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just did your survey.

Coincidentally I was just reading an article about a new chick lit genre in Japan.

here's the link Letter from Japan: I ♥ Novels: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Apparently loads of ordinary women are becoming best selling authors really quickly by writing novels from their mobile phones and posting them on specifically designed web sites. Because of the medium used, a unique style has developed. (japanese equivalent of txt spk, western left-to-right formatting, etc) The best books get published in print and it's become the number one selling genre.

(just in case your interested)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

Thank you for this information, very interesting indeed as I will be looking into the sub-genres and future developments in Chick Lit at some point in my dissertation (not quite at that stage yet) but I'm sure this will prove useful :up:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Took part in your survey too!

Chick-lit is interesting because it can be divided into further sub-genres...

You used Jodi Picoult as an example of someone who may or may not be chick-lit, alongside Marian Keyes. Jodi Picoult I would associate as being more serious, almost issue-based (bullying, suicide, abuse) chick-lit, whereas someone like Keyes, alongside Sophie Kinsella and Jenny Colgan are a lot lighter, 'fluffier' and generally deal with relationships in a lighthearted manner...

I wouldn't class Bridget Jones in this genre, but I can see how Helen Fielding may have made it easier for lesser known female authors writing about relationships to have their work picked up by bigger publishing houses....hence the boom post-Fielding...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for completing my survey, it's much appreciated :-)

Yes, I thought this question with Jodi Picoult was important to put in. Having spoken to some of my friends they have argued to me that she is a Chick Lit author, yet I personally feel she is not. There seems to be a few authors on the edge and I thought it would be interesting to see what authors people would pick out. Marian Keyes novels are also very issue based, although more splashed with humour and less 'serious' looking covers. It's amazing how much difference the covers can make isn't it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, I'm sure your not, there are a good few in the 55+ area don't worry :-)

I didnt mention this in my survey but I'm lalso looking to find out what people think are some of the most influential novels in the progression of Chick Lit?

Bridget Jones Diary and Sex and the City in the 1990's for example... I have a good few in mind for analysis but I just want to make sure I don't miss any key novels.

Have any novels introduced a fresh twist, or original idea/concept, that kind of thing,

does anyone have any suggestions?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

haha, well I can imagine what you might of thought....hmm :-S

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure why I chose this for my dissertation. I guess mainly because while studying Publishing with Journalism at University, I have found I prefer the publishing side (particularly book publishing) and therefore I wanted to do a topic directly related. Chick Lit was an area that interested me a lot - for many reasons, One example being that when I spoke about it many people reacted rather snobbishly towards it, or were very quick to laugh or criticise. Yet, there are millions of people out there buying it. Some people are claiming that this is detrimental to literary world and that the novels are less deserving of recognition etc. One of the aims in my research is to find out what 'the publics' opinion really is, with real facts, and not just based on assumptions from a minority group of literary critcs for example. Although I do like reading these kind of books (most of what I have read anyway) I have been careful to analyse from both viewpoints, as in many ways I can see the pro's and con's. My first thoughts of course were, Chick Lit, thats not a serious topic for a dissertation, no ones going to take this seriously, but its that kind of attitude that I think is all wrong, women's issues are too often trivialised, and that gave me even more motivation to go ahead with it I suppose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you thought of interviewing folk browsing in a bookshop?

Or you could always get in touch with one of the managers and ask if you could drop off some printed out surveys or get folk to add names to an e-mail list if they're interested in doing your survey? Just an idea for getting more 'data' as it were.

Apologies if you've already done some of these!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes its a good idea in theory, but no I haven't been into the bookstores, and from what I have heard, the managers wouldn't be too happy about it. I think I have enough avenues open now though to get a good number of survey responses and data collected from a varied audinece. Oh, and thank you for the Oliva Goldsmith suggestion, I will def have to consider her :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Hi again, thank you for all your responses so far, just need a few more non-chick lit surveys completed before I can close the surveys. So if there any of you who haven't yet filled one in and are reading this, please do so, it is much appreciated :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

Just to let eveyone know the survey is now closed. I'd just like to thank everyone on here who has taken the time to fill out the survey, it has been very much appreciated. I will be posting the results online at some point but this may take a while, so please bear with me. I'll place the links on here as soon as possible. Thanks again :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...