Peek Behind the Curtain: Review Stats 2012

As 2012 draws to a close, I've been crunching some numbers.

How many books did I read in 2012? 

Answer: 200

You can see all of them here on my Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge Page.

I read 63 YA debut books, and you can see a list of those I read here.

How many books did I review in 2012? 

Answer: 120

Like a lot of bloggers, I complain that every book I read is part of a series. This year, it seemed like I read about a hundred dystopian YA books. And then there's that crazy idea that bloggers are all OUT TO GET FREE BOOKS.

With the help of Excel, Apple Pages, and some techie family members, I am out to dispel all those misperceptions. Because numbers don't lie. Unless I'm doing the math. But this time, Excel is doing it for me :)

Note: these statistics go through December 25. Books reviewed this past week release in January and are going to be counted with 2013 stats.

Question One: Where Did I Get the Books I Reviewed in 2012?

Okay, it's a little hard to read this graph. If I make it any bigger, it eats up my sidebar.

But, believe it or not.... in 2012, I bought over one-third (42 out of the 120) of the books that I reviewed.

My second major source of review books was Netgalley (34 books), swaps with other bloggers (11 books), Book Expo America (10 books), and my local library (10 books).



Question Two: What was the format of the books I read?

It did not surprise me that I read all formats pretty equally!

38 of the books I reviewed were e-ARCs

33 of the books I reviewed were paper ARCs

49 of the books I reviewed were finished copies

Question Three: What was the breakdown of publishers for the books I reviewed?
I'm doing two separate charts, the first for the so-called Big Six, plus Disney/Hyperion and Scholastic.

I reviewed 20 Penguin books, 18 HarperCollins, 15 Random House, 14 each from Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, 5 each from Little Brown/Poppy and Disney/Hyperion, and 4 from Scholastic.

This statistic really surprised me, because Penguin very rarely approves me on NetGalley or Edelweiss -- three times, say my stats. Most of those Penguin books were bought by me!

Now, let's turn to the mid- and smaller-sized publishers. 

I reviewed 6 Harlequin titles, 5 Bloomsbury, 3 each from KTeen and Harcourt, 2 each from Egmont and Candlewick and 1 each from Sourcebooks, Entangled and Flux.  Also one self-published title.

Question Four: What was the genre breakdown of books I reviewed?

Okay, this one drove me crazy. Due to the growing trend of genre-blending in YA, I struggled a little with this one. Where did I categorize books that were dystopian-fantasy with sci-fi elements? Or contemporaries with elements of magical realism? Or steampunk elements? To keep myself sane, I didn't overthink it too much.

I know I read a lot of contemporary/realistic fiction. But I was surprised that contemporaries made up less than half of my total books read.

Question Five: Is it true that I am in the middle of a million YA series?

It feels that way. But this one surprised me:

 Yes, I reviewed a lot of books that were part of series. 44 to be exact. But also even more standalones -- 67 of those! I'm sure that part of the explanation for this is that I read a lot of contemporary YA, which tend to be standalones.

And I'm loving the trend of the companion book -- I reviewed 9 companion books in 2012.

Okay, hope that was somewhat interesting. It was to me, at least!  

Are there any other stats you'd be interested in for next year? I'm making my 2013 spreadsheet right now.