From the Booking Desk:

I am often asked how I decide what to review. This is far too complicated a process for me to distill into one blog post, but I did think it would be interesting to do an analysis of how I obtained the books I reviewed for 2014.

Total Number of Books Reviews = 61

Digital Galleys = 13

  • Edelweiss = 8
  • NetGalley = 5

Purchased = 10

  • Myself = 9 (6 physical, 3 digital)
  • Gifted = 1(digital)

Conferences = 15

  • Book Expo America = 12
  • Bouchercon = 3

Direct from Publisher/Publicist/Author = 18

  • Physical ARC = 15
  • E-ARC = 3

Audiobook (from Publisher) = 5

From The Booking Desk:

This of course only reflects stats for books that resulted in a review. Since I don’t keep complete records of the books I don’t finish or don’t review, I can’t break those out for us to examine – maybe next year.

What can we learn from this? There are many ways that books get into the hands of bloggers. Most bloggers will use any and all methods available. For me, it appears that the methods are fairly evenly split this year. While E-ARCs are becoming more popular, the physical ARC still dominates in my case, mainly because of the conference attendance. Direct marketing from Publisher/Publicist/Author is still vitally important. I didn’t break those stats down further as often, it is a combination of these three which result in BOLO Books receiving the title. E-Galley services are also important, but this shows that for me, they are pretty much equal in providing content. I prefer the interface with Edelweiss, but the recent changes to NetGalley may change that. This was my first year doing audiobook reviews, so we’ll see if that continues.

I hope this small insight into the blogging world has proven to be useful. Onward to next year!