My original goal was 115 books but I got myself into a big reading slump. I changed it in November to 50 books and I surpassed that by 6. This is my lowest recording reading year. However, I'm happy to have surpassed my new goal.
I'm trying to get out of the headspace that reading more books is better. I do want to read a lot of books but if I don't have the time I want to focus on reading quality books. I want to DNF bad books and treasure books I'm really enjoying. But, I got to admit, I would love to go and read 175 books like I did in 2012. I don't think I'll ever have the time for that though. Overall, I'm happy I was able to read a good amount of good books this year.
My page count according to Goodreads is at 10,519. I'm really happy about this since I read a lot of picture books and by December I thought I wouldn't even reach 10,000. I'm sure to read a lot of shorter books including picture books next year, but it'll be nice to get to 10,000 pages read next year too.
Looking at my breakdown of page lengths for books, I could really read more lengthy reads. I do want to read a lot of short fiction next year as well so a good balance of those plus a smaller percentage of 0-99 page length books is my goal.
The two star rating is way too high. I almost have an even amount of book star ratings for 2-5 stars. This is why I must start to DNF books straight away if I'm not liking them by a certain point. I did rate 1 DNF which I don't mind doing if I've read more than a quarter of a book. I need to continue doing that but earlier on into the book. That way I don't have to rate it if I read so little of it. I could tell 10 pages into one of my two star reads that I wasn't going to like it. I obviously know when I'm not going to like a book so this is doable. I hope I can get the 3-5 star ratings as the majority percentage next year.
Most of the books I read were picture books so this wasn't a surprise to me. The three next most reads: contemporary, fantasy, and graphic novels were expected. It's just crazy how predictable my reading is like I wouldn't be surprised if fantasy, contemporary, and graphic novels were my top genres my past reading years as well. I want to branch out more next year or at the very least read more than one book from my lower genre reads.
Side note: My contemporary books were mostly romance. I might change the name of that category next year.
I thought it would be interesting to look at my 8 graphic novel books and break them down by genre. I'm glad I read a few sci-fi based books because I don't tend to give sci-fi a try. It would be interesting to read more mystery centered graphic novels, although I wouldn't know where to start.
My breakdown for age groups is pretty sad. I don't mind reading so many children books but I would like it to be a smaller percentage. The percentage I have for YA is actually a good amount. I would really like to bump up my adult reads most of all. It would be nice if I can get it at 20% or higher next year.
I'm pretty proud that I unexpectedly read more ARCs and books that I own in a long time. Ideally I would like to keep this around the same. A little more books read that I own would be nice but it is not like I have a ton left to read. Although rereading is an option of course.
So this is why I have so many unfinished series! Wow. I didn't expect to have such a high percentage of series reads. I did read a couple of picture book series but not that much. I finished only two series which counts for four books so that's not the best...
I want to get into the habit of if I start a series, I continue reading through the series if I can. I don't want so many series to linger on.
This last chart I thought I would look at the authors behind my books read. I read so much YA that I could never be surprised by the overwhelming amount of female authors I read. I did read a good amount of male authors, more than I think I've ever read at one time. I want to maintain and possibly grow the amount of male authors I read. It would be nice for the percentages to be more 50/50.
I got this idea from Jeann @ Happy Indulgence to look at my follower count and page view averages. It feels very weird to look at my follower count because over the years I stopped caring. But, I've realized that it's been around this same amount forever now. I don't mind being small but I know the reasoning for it and that is that I hardly, consistently, view other readers blogs posts and create my own. The middle of the year I tend to hardly post or not at all. I also think it's time I branch out with my posts namely adding discussion posts which I don't know if I've ever done... I know I'm missing out on getting to know some more readers like me so that's important to me to change that. I would like to be more interactive in general with reading. I want to do more buddy reads and readalongs but I don't really know where to start. It's something I want to at least think through next year because it's just a lot more fun to discuss books in like a book club setting.
For my follower count, I do have a very small goal that seems really silly. I have it written down and I'll let you know if I get to it next year. I just want each area to grow a little more next year basically.
Blog Views
Sharing the amount of views I get feels really strange but here it is. My average views this year was approximately 2,403. My total views were approximately 28,833 in 2018. My total page views since I started blogging are 326,466. It's not that bad. I do want to make my monthly average 3,000. Saying that, I would like my yearly page views to be at 36,000 views and my total to be 360,000 views.
Saying all this, my blog stats aren't something that I ever want to overly care for. I blog for fun and that's it. I would like to ultimately read more blogs and make new friendships. Everything else is a bonus. However, I enjoy working on my blog. It's a great hobby to have so I do want to improve and grow in the future.
What do your reading and blogging stats look like this year?
Are you content with your reading and blogging or would you like to change some things?
I definitely read way more female than male authors, too. Probably because I read a lot of women's contemporary fiction and historical fiction.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason my stats in December were crazy high, but that's unusual. I wish I had more page views, but honestly I'm happier when I get comments!
That makes sense. I guess historical fiction is something more women write which I've seen whenever I've read historical fiction. Or maybe I'm not looking hard enough.
DeleteDecember is always a big month for me. I think mid-year as well around June it spikes up for some reason or another.
It looks like you had a great year. I think that reading quality books is more important than hitting some magic number. Good luck on reaching your goals in 2019!
ReplyDeleteI think so too. I think mostly since I had such a hard time reading that I didn't enjoy my reading overall this past year. That's probably why I'm disappointed. Thanks, you too (:
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