Calling All Stats Miners

[HaloNoble6]

Aside from our efforts to combat mindlessness in every way we can (e.g. through blogging and posting on forums), we should also be logically interested in the cultural trends in our society, particularly the growth in Objectivists and Ayn Rand admirers.

In an effort to statistically quantify the growth of Objectivism and Ayn Rand readers, I'd like to get my hands on some statistical figures. Namely, on the statistics of Ayn Rand's book sales (by volume), statistics of total book sales in the U.S. (by volume), statistics of the average number of people living in the U.S. who read at least one fiction book per year, and ideally (though likely impossible) a rational assessment of the percentage of first-time Ayn Rand-readers that become life-long students of Objectivism, or at least Ayn Rand sympathizers.

With these figures, we can compare the percentage growth of Ayn Rand sympathizers to the percentage growth of the national population, and get a feel for how far her influence has come. I'm sure ARI has done some of this work already, but I can't find it on the web.

So, if any of you guys have better Google-Fu than I, please contribute any pertinent data that might help quantify the growth of Ayn Rand's influence in the U.S.