YouGov Profiles: like books? You must have a cat If you're a reader of Hilary Mantel, you're likely to be a woman aged 60 or above, live in London and work in education, and have a disposable income of more than £1,000 a month. Your favourite food will be Vichysoisse soup, you'll enjoy going to the theatre, and you'll have a cat. Recognise yourself there? Fans of Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, are women aged 25-39 from central Scotland, left-wing, work in information technology, and have less than £125 spare every month. They'll read the Guardian, watch Big Bang Theory and Doctor Who on TV, and probably have a cat. No surprises there, perhaps. These are some of the fascinating literary nuggets thrown up by the new YouGov Profiles service, an online "media planning and audience segmentation tool" which is aimed at companies and brands to help them get to know their customers - and, presumably, flog them more stuff. It's great fun to poke around to find out what pictures emerge from the data drawn from YouGov's 200,000 UK panellists - who offer up demographic and lifestyle information for the constantly updating database - especially in literary tastes. As YouGov Profiles is described in very science-fictional terms as a "segmentation and media planning product [powered by a] connected data vault," let's see what they have to say about the literary genre of SF. Our typical male, 40 to 59-year-old sci-fi fan likes a good curry, probably lives in northern Scotland, is (surprisingly, to me at any rate) right-wing, and likes video games, motorsports and fishing, when they don't have their nose in a book. They also have less than £125 a month in disposable income, which may come as a surprise to those throwing money over the dealers" tables at the science fiction conventions. Contemporary fiction aficionados, on the other hand, are most likely to live in London, be women in the 60+ age range, and be ever so slightly right-wing - hardly noticeable on the YouGov site's swingometer, mind. They'll work in media and have up to £499 to blow after all the bills have been paid. Like a crime or thriller novel? Then you'll be a 40 to 59-year-old woman, left-leaning, work in law and live in the West Country. You'll read the Mail and Heat, binge on chocolate éclairs, and shop at the Co-op. And guess what? You'll probably have a cat. There are some surprising results, though. Martin Amis fan? Then you will enjoy the illustration of the typical Amis-ite which accompanies the profile - a moustachioed, flat-cap wearing Victor Meldrew lookalike. The over-60s male lives in the north-west (perhaps that's where the flat cap comes in), is as right-wing as they come, and likes nothing better than a hearty bowl of porridge. He'll shop at Lidl, drive a VW, and - no cats here - the Amis fan will have a dog. Looks like the author hit his target market perfectly with 2012"s Lionel Asbo. Of course, the whole thing is a numbers game; the more people who lay claim to an interest in a particular author or genre, the more accurate the picture is likely to be. For example, there are more than 5,400 JK Rowling fans on the panel, compared to 68 for Margaret Atwood, so the broader spread should help build up a better profile. It has to be said, out of the 200,000 panellists, relatively small numbers specify fiction preferences - anything ranging from around 50 to 170 for the various genres. Readers of non-fiction - a broad church, admittedly - number in the 800s. Overall, though, well over a quarter of the panellists list "reading" as an activity. Creativity is also high on the agenda - "writing" as an activity is marked by more than 14,000 of the focus group. The average hobbyist writer is an 18 to 24-year-old woman from London who works in media and publishing, shops at ASOS, uses Tumblr and has, guess what, a cat. But if you're one of these companies and brands aiming to get people to part with their hard-earned, which literary fanbase should you go for? Well, if you want to make any serious money out of readers, then go for the children's and young adult fiction market. Not only are these fans 25 to 39-year-old young women from the West Country (presumably no actual children took part in the focus group), they're just about left of Trotsky and have a whopping £1,000+ spare cash at the end of every month. Hunger Games? What's hunger?