I’m six months from hitting 10 years of blogging on this site. That’s an achievement in and of itself. I’m sure that recap will be more interesting than this one as I’ve kept this one to mostly stats and facts ranging for the 2019 calendar year.
Overall most of my stats were up on the reading front. I think that’s from having a job that I’m enjoying with a great team and finally being able to relax a bit in my non-work life. I’ve also spent time reading more graphic novels and young adult novels (hey numbers boost :-D)
2019 Quick Facts
No major surprises here really—the number of library books I read is up significantly, but other than that pretty standard. I really should make efforts to read off my TBR shelf as that hit a low this year, but meh. I was one short of my nonfiction goal (one book a month) and boosted my translated works this year from 0% last year. My only regret is reading as many of A.D. Ellis’s works as I did. I hate read the last four and should’ve just quit after the second.
▲ or ▼ denotes higher or lower percentage or total than in 2018
- Total Books Read: 76 ▲
- Library Books: 43 (57%) ▲
- Galley/ARC: 14 (18%) ▼
- Kindle/Digital: 38 (50%) ▲
- Physical Books: 38 (50%) ▼
- TBR Books: 2 (3%) ▼
- Fiction: 46 (86%) ▲
- Nonfiction: 11 (14%) ▼
- Blended (F and NF): 0 (0%) ▼
- Translated: 6 (8%) ▲
- Total Pages Read: 22,575
- Shortest Book Read: Bob’s Burgers: Medium Rare (96 pages)
- Longest Book Read: Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower #5) by Stephen King (765 pages)
- Authors:
- New to me: 46 of 51 (90%) ▲
- Most Read: Annabeth Albert (7); A.D. Ellis (6); Bob’s Burgers (5); Bill Konigsberg (4)
- Author Gender Split:
- Male: 33% ▲
- Female: 55% ▼
- Multiple/Other: 12% ▲
2019 Comparative Stats
Still need to work on reading my own books. Honestly, if there is one goal more than any other, it’s that. I need to start making room on my shelves.
Seems like I’m on an upward trend again (hopefully). I’m not surprised galleys continue to decrease, I really did mean to read my own books, but you know libraries exist and well I have little self-control.
The most surprising thing about this is that the pages went up. I read a lot of shorter comics and graphic novels this year.
No real surprises here – I’ve always generally read more female than male authors. I’m a little surprised there weren’t any mixed groups (probably input error).
Lowest nonfiction in ages. I’ll need to remedy that as my goal really is at least one a month. Part of it is that I’ve been sitting on a review copy of a nonfiction book for six months and I should’ve just read it.
I didn’t get around to the updated version of this chart but here are the other numbers I track:
- Total Unsolicited Requests: 88 ▼
- % of Unsolicited Requests Reviewed: 6 (6.82%) ▼
- Self Published Unsolicited Requests: 41 (46.59%) ▲
- Self Published Accepted for review: 0 ▼
- Solicited Requests Reviewed: 8
Overall, everything is down because I’ve put warnings up on my pages saying I’m not really accepting unsolicited books and I’ve always been hesitant to read self-published works. I do genuinely take a look at each request and research publishers (many boutique publishers are actually just disguised self-publishing factories). This page has been super helpful, but so many self published books are buried under misleading publishers names and it takes a lot of time to research them. There is nothing wrong with self publishing but I’ve had so many requests where authors claim a work has been professionally edited, but I can tell within the first 2-3 pages that it hasn’t. Thankfully I didn’t have any arguments/push back when I politely declined reviews this year (which has happened in the past.
Top Book Posts
Quite a bit of change since last year, but that’s to be expected. It’s no surprise Atwood stayed on top with the release of The Testaments and subsequent Booker Prize win this year.
- Book 272: The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (Apr 18, 2014)
- Book 364: Burn After Writing – Sharon Jones (Aug 3, 2015)
- Book 528: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli (Dec 18, 2017)
- Book 54: The Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester (Jul 25, 2011)
- Book 345: How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad) – Lee Crutchley (May 4, 2015)
- Book 576: Boy Erased – Garrard Conley (Nov 21, 2018)
- Book 159: By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept (And on the Seventh Day Trilogy) – Paulo Coelho (Dec 10, 2012)
- Book 45: The Alchemist – Paolo Coelho (Jun 27, 2011)
- Book 140: Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami (Sep 21, 2012)
- Book 387: The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood (Oct 8, 2015)
Top Book Posts Published in 2019
I was glad to see a couple of my favorite reads this year on here (My Brother’s Husband, Bloom, and Red, White & Royal Blue) and wasn’t surprised to see some of my least favorites (Kade & Cameron and Get it Done) on here. I’ve included the overall ranking in parentheses. Just goes to show a lot of my older posts continue to get traction while newer posts don’t. I wonder if this has anything to do with Facebook cutting off publishing to personal profiles.
- (15) Book 600: Shortest Way Home – Pete Buttigieg (Mar 8)
- (61-T) Book 594: River Queens – Alexander Watson (Feb 12)
- (63-T) Book 589: Lethal White (Cormoran Strike #4) – Robert Galbraith (Jan 23)
- (76-T) Book 591: Fence Vol. 1 (Fence #1) – C.S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad, and Joana LaFuente (Feb 2)
- (82-T) Book 651: Sorted – Jackson Bird (Sep 30)
- (84 T) Book 597: Let Go of Emotional Overeating – Arlene Englander (Feb 25)
- Book 631: My Brother’s Husband, Vol. 1 – Gengorah Tagame (Jul 29)
- (88-T) Book 630: Kade & Cameron (Something About Him #6) – A.D. Ellis (Jul 23)
Book 617: The Book on Rental Property Investing – Brandon Turner (Jun 5) - (94) Book 609: Get It Done – Michael Mackintosh (Apr 10)
- (95-T) Book 592: China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians #2) – Kevin Kwan (Feb 5)
Book 647: Red, White & Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston (Sep 16)
Book 636: Bloom – Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau (Aug 11)
2020 Reading and Blogging Goals (2019 Check-In)
Since I’m posting my 40×40 shortly I won’t spend a lot of time on this. I’m basically carrying my same goals forward from last year. Below is a check of where I ended up on those goals:
- Read at least 52 books: ✔
- 76 books in 2019
- Read more nonfiction: ✖
- 11 books in 2019 compared to 13 in 2018
- Reach 975 Posts: ✔
- Published my 994th posts in 2019
- Redesign at least one book page: ✔
- I didn’t do the floating images I planned, but I discovered accordion html and began refreshing the pages starting with my books by author pages.
- Find new book bloggers and interact with them: ✔
- Technically I did this, but I have already unfollowed quite a few as they quickly turned to Instagram/photo only posts or moved away from books.
- Transition to a self hosted website: ✔
- I shifted to Bluehost over the summer and meh. I haven’t noticed much of a difference but hadn’t had a lot of time to really explore either.
Did you have any surprises in 2019? What are YOUR goals in 2020?
What are you using to make your bar graphs?
It’s just Excel. I’m using one of the charts on the second or third page when you scroll through.
It looks really nice, so I was curious. Thanks!
Thanks! I feel like someone else used it a few years ago and I asked them then! (You can also do a lighter gray as the background too!)
You only narrowly missed that non fiction goal so still a good achievement. I get frustrated too by so called publishing houses that turn out to essentially printing factories where there is no editor intervention. Having had some awful experiences with self published books when I first started blogging, I’m super wary about them now.
Exactly! I’ve even had issues with Amazon and Bookbub. Their discounted/daily deals sometimes are by self published authors but it’s hard to tell without spending a decent amount of time digging around. It’s how I ended up buying and then hate reading A.D. Ellis’s books.
Nice recap. I’m an analyst professionally, and like the stats and graphs. Excellent year of reading.
Thanks! I kept messing up on the last one’s formatting but after the third time uploading it I just left it.