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 in 2014 I started to post an analysis of how I obtained the books I ended up reviewing. Here is the data for 2015.
Total Number of Books Reviews = 74
Digital Galleys = 14
- Edelweiss = 8
- NetGalley = 6
Purchased = 6
- Myself = 6 (all physical books)
- Gifted = 0
Conferences = 11
- Book Expo America = 2
- Bouchercon = 9
Direct from Publisher/Publicist/Author = 42
- Physical ARC = 38
- E-ARC = 4
Audiobook (purchased) = 1
Total Number of Other Reviews = 21
- Short Stories = 8
- Comics = 8
- Television/Film/Theater = 5
From The Booking Desk:
This of course only reflects stats for books that resulted in a review. Total books read in the year is somewhere in the neighborhood of 125, with another 50 or so what I call “Did Not Finish.”
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 this year, physical copies direct from the publisher/publicist/author made a huge jump. This reflects the realization that while I love the convenience of digital reading/storage, I still prefer to read a physical book. All things equal, if given the choice, I am going to choose the print book. Books obtained at conferences also remain vitally important, but as I get more shipped direct, this has become a less necessary way of obtaining titles.
This was also the first year that I reviewed both comics and short stories. As I found that I enjoyed both, this will continue in the future.
Love seeing these numbers and I feel a bit vindicated when I don’t review all the books that I have read.
I really try to keep my reviews as only things that I absolutely loved or feel have some significant impact on the genre as a whole. As you knos, reviewing takes a lot of time, beyond the reading itself, and so I need to keep it as “happy” a place as I can in order to prevent it from feeling like a job.
Interesting insights – thanks for sharing…and thanks for all the reading and reviewing 🙂
My pleasure Cathy. I do think quantifying this stuff helps in some ways – might hurt in others. But it’s important that everyone remember that in most cases, book bloggers are working solo, so there really is only so much they can do and still have a day job/life.