This new feature, Bubbly Berls Babbles (or BBB), is kind of an adaptation of my old feature, Fun Questions, back at Fantasy is More Fun. And the title tells it all. I’m Bubbly, I’m Berls, and I’m about to Babble about something! I hope you’ll babble along with me 🙂
Today Bubbly Berls is Babbling about: Goodreads Books of the Year!
So I just went on Goodreads to pick out which book(s) I’d review on the blog next and flashing at the top of the page is a reminder to vote in the 11th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards. Now I’ve read almost 120 books this year. I realize many people read a lot more than that, but its good number of books. So I figure, surely I have some books in the running.
Y’all I have only read ONE of the books in the running! ONE! I have like 2 or 3 of them on my TBR and another 2 or 3 are authors that I really like and just hadn’t gotten around to putting their books on my TBR.
Considering that I read a good number of books (admittedly plenty of older ones, but also several new releases), I find myself wondering how does Goodreads decide the books that are in the running? I feel like I should at least be familiar with most of them in the categories I read a lot of. Does anyone know? I realize I could probaby google and find some answers, but I have a new baby that will probably wake up any minute, so I’d rather let ya’ll tell me 🙂 LOL!
This also raises another question. Do you vote when you’ve only read one of the books? I mean, that one book was really good, but was it better than the others that I never even heard of? And then… do you vote for the books written by authors you love, just to support them? I go back and forth with this every year. I see an author I love and I haven’t managed to read that book yet, but I JUST KNOW I would love it and I want to see them win… but should you vote when you haven’t read it?
And another question. Does a book making into the list (or winning!) motivate you to read it? I know I’ve noticed books I otherwise might have missed thanks to the list of nominees, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a book because it was selected.
I mostly read indie books, so I feel like this every year where I haven’t read (m)any of the books they pick. I recognized a few book covers of the books in the running this year and that’s about it, I don’t think I even read any of the books in the running this year. I usually don’t vote at all, in the past I’ve sometimes I voted for a book by an author I know even though I hadn’t read it yet, but mostly unless there’s a book I read I don’t vote. I have no clue how they pick the books, maybe they use some Goodreads stat like most shelved or most read books this year for it?
If I see a book in the running I forgot about I might be more tempted to read it because I got reminded of it, but like with most awards it doesn’t really mean much to me. Whether a book appeals to me or sounds good or even whether my friends recommend it, has more power than whether it wins any award or bestselling status. I think it is probably great for the authors to win such an award though, but I’ve always wondered whether it actually matters for sales.
Honestly I’ve stopped voting on the Goodreads Book of the Year poll because I can’t think of the last time I had read more then one or two in a couple of categories. I read a LOT of mysteries a year and I’m always shocked by the number of books in the mystery category I haven’t even heard of. I’m not sure where they dig up the books! And really the books listed seem so random that I don’t really attach any importance to them anymore so it doesn’t motivate me to read them at all. I’m not sure I’ve even looked at the categories this year!
I was in a twitter conversation with other romance readers about some of the same issues. I used to take time to nominate books that I felt deserved to be there. Now I pretty much ignore the whole thing – unless there is a book I did read and loved on the lists. But they seem skewed and not indicative to what I’ve heard around the realm as to what are the favorites for the year. I hope you find out who puts up the initial nominations and let us know!
I have the same problems! I’ll have one or two that I’ve read in a category (if that!) and I’m like- can I really vote? So as it turns out I only ended up voting in a few categories, ones where I felt okay doing so cause I’d read at least a few of the books. although there was one or two categories where I voted even though I’d only read the one book- I liked it so much I voted for it anyway lol!
yea I have the same issues and problems. Like Linda, I try to only vote for books I have actually read. I possibly messed up and voted for one I want to read. But I’ve read almost 300 just like her. I had the most difficult time with scifi/fantasy because that is where I had read most and enjoyed many of them.
I only vote for books I’ve read. And I’ve read 290 books this year, and have only read like five or six of the books in the award… I’m with you – I hope someone will figure it out and let us know!!
Sending big hugs to you and baby Dante <3