Friday, January 4, 2019

2018 End of Year Book Stats & Overview



One of my favorite things about the new year is getting to look at an overview of all the books I read during the previous year! In all honesty, I'm a really weird person who tends to get anxious at the start of a new year. While most people find the new fresh start and blank slate exhilarating and motivating, I tend to find it terrifying because it's just wide open...nothing? It's hard to explain, but what can I say, anxiety is fun. But we're not here to talk about anxiety--we're here to talk about books!

As usual, I'm starting off with some of the fun facts given to us by the wonderful Year in Books section from Goodreads. I also usually do The Perpetual Page-Turner's End of Year Survey, but this year I decided to keep track of some of the stats on the books I read and I'm instead going to share some of that info because I love stats and charts and all that fun stuff. I always see people keeping track of information on the books they read throughout the year and always mean to do it myself, so I'm glad I finally decided to just do it and answer some pressing questions I've had. For instance, where do I actually get most of the books I read? How much more fantasy do I actually read over other genres? What format of books do I read the most of? Some of my results were surprising, but most were pretty much what I expected.



This was unexpected! I always set my Goodreads goal around 60 so that it's still something to strive for, but also something that I know I can somewhat easily do so as not to pressure myself. The minute reading becomes a chore is the minute I realize I have to re-prioritize things. I did some math and figured out this ends up at an average of 138 pages a day, which is bonkers and I'm not sure how that happens. I'm pleased with 132 books! If for any reason you want to see all of those books, you can find all the books I read here.


Seems about right! Jerusalem was definitely the biggest challenge of the year. I always try to tackle one hugely intimidating book each year, and this year it was Jerusalem. It was well worth the read, though!

Yeah, The Odyssey is just a little popular, so that doesn't surprise me. That is also a very small amount of people who have read Hollywood Hostage. My average rating seems way too high, but then Goodreads doesn't account for half and quarter ratings and I tend to round those up on Goodreads, so I'm guessing that's what happened here. I did have a pretty good reading year overall, though, so there's that.

Stats:
And now let's dive into some stats! I'd like to apologize in advance for how small some of the charts ended up being. I've been battling with Blogger for far too long now with formatting to get things how I want them, so this is just where we're at. :/
Genre
In the biggest shocker of the year, I read more fantasy (56.8%) than anything else! I know, I know, stop clutching your pearls, it was a shock to all of us. Despite that, I do like that I read in quite a few different genres, though I wish I had more time to read even more from different genres. I was actually surprised at how little historical fiction (6.1%) I read this past year because that's one of my favorite genres. I think I've just gotten so enmeshed in fantasy book worlds and somehow find it easier to obtain fantasy ARCs and copies from my library, so I end up reading those more. I think I'll try to focus on some historical fiction next year and try to include more. My sci-fi (9.1%) is definitely up, though.

Target Audience

This is pretty much what I expected. I read mostly adult (69.7%), but I do still enjoy some good YA (22.7%) here and there, though when it comes to YA I mainly read fantasy. Contemporary YA is usually not my thing (with a few exceptions). Middle grade is what I usually read at night before bed so 7% seems about right. I'm not sure how weird this is, but I have super vivid dreams every night that I tend to remember decently well in the morning when I wake up (or that wake me up in terror in the middle of the night), so I've learned not to read things that are too heavy and dark at night (which is, ironically, usually the type of book I love)--and that's where middle grade fantasy fits in! I've grown to love so many MG books and I totally recommend people to some out if they have a chance.

Format
So this category was one I was most interested to see the results of. I decided to differentiate between Ebook ARCs (23.5%) and physical ARCs (15.2%) for my own personal information since I tend to read ebooks on the go or when I'm eating/walking/etc., so I though it was interesting to see how many I've read throughout the year while doing those things. That 1% ebook category is proof and justification of why I no longer purchase ebooks. I read ebooks no problem, but almost all of my ebooks are now ARCs from NetGalley or from authors as review requests, so I no longer tend to spend money on books that I don't physically own. I might still buy things here and there, especially if it's ebook-only, but for the most part I don't.

Book Source
Another area that I was most interested in was the places I get the books I read from! I was surprised by the publisher (36.4%) and review request percentage (12.1%--by review requests, I mean books that authors have emailed me about to review their book and subsequently sent me a copy), as hey were definitely higher than I expected. This also shows me that I really need to start reading more of the books I actually own already and that you don't have to buy a lot of books to be a reader necessarily. I also love using my library (12.1%), so I'm surprised that percentage is lower. 


Page Count
The way this chart turned out is super annoying to my eyes, but I can't seem to get it do what I want, but that's beside the point. I feel like this is fairly regular in regards to book length, as 300-500 pages seems to be the norm in most, especially for fantasy which tends to be longer.

Tell me about your year in books! Do you keep track of information for stats like this? (If you do and you made a post that I haven't seen, leave me a link because I love looking at them!)

9 comments:

  1. Wow 132 books, how do you do it?! I love the statistics you posted.

    This looks exactly like a post for the meme I started last year! If you like, you can link up in the post below, so others can find your post 🙂

    http://www.biteintobooks.com/2018/12/goodreads-your-year-in-books-meme-2018.html

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    1. Ooh awesome, I'll head over and do that! Thanks for letting me know!

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  2. Wow, that's a lot of books! I wish Goodreads had half-star options, because it really could be changing my average rating, too!

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    1. It really would. If there was one thing Goodreads could change, that's what I would hope for.

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  3. Looks like you had an awesome year of reading last year. I hope this one's even better. :)

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    1. Thanks, it really was! I hope so too, and I hope yours is great as well. :)

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  4. 132 books is awesome! Great numbers. I've noticed I've been reading a lot less historical fiction the last few years- when I started blogging I was still reading a fair amount of it, but not so much now. I need to work on that too.

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  5. Congrats on reading do many books! I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. I love your pie charts, I've never kept track of the books I read like that, but maybe this year I will😊

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  6. AWESOME stats!! I need to up my game with my tracking this year :)

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