How many Writing and Critique Groups exist?

Jane Friedman (editorial director of Writer's Digest Books) asks this question on her Blog, There are No Rules.

She writes:

Every week at F+W, we have a pub board meeting where sales, marketing, and editorial teams discuss new projects for publication. It's the editor's job to convince the sales team that we have a viable book idea (with the right author) that will sell.

This morning, we pitched a book on writing and critique groups. While anecdotal evidence tells us that most writers do participate in some form of critiquing (whether as part of a formal group or not), we don't have hard evidence. So the sales people tabled the project until we could return with information that substantiated our claims. They also disputed whether writers would spend their money on a book about writing groups and critiquing, even if they are an active writing group member.

So we're putting together a survey that will soon go out to Writer's Digest newsletter subscribers, to see what data we can collect. I'd love to hear from readers of this blog as well, if you know of any information/data that would be useful to us.

She asks bloggers to spread the word, and share any feedback they might get on their blogs, with her.

She hopes to "create a groundswell of discussion that will convince our sales team that this idea deserves realization as a physical book."

I share writing exercises, and prompts, as well as my own creative writing and have a bunch of interesting links in my sidebar (Writer's and Writing), so I decided, even though my meager readership is not in the same league, to follow the lead of Robert Lee Brewer, of Poetic Asides, and spread the word. ;-D