All year long we track our reviews in a spreadsheet so at the end of the year we can crunch some numbers and take a look at our stats. We track info you can’t find on Goodreads like diversity, format, and retailers; then pull the most interesting stats in a handy infographic via Canva.
If you’d like a copy of our infographic template to do your own, e-mail me at romanceandsensibility@gmail.com ! If you are looking to track your own stats you can download a copy of our basicRomance Reader Spreadsheet. Feel free to edit and or add formulas to it, we’d love to see what you can come up with.
Publisher Breakdown
35% HarperCollins
25% Self-Published*
10% Harlequin
4% Random House
4% Kensington
4% Sourcebooks Casablanca
2% Amazon Publishing
2% Shadow Mountain
2% Simon and Schuster
2% Penguin
*Two self-published books, Permanent Ink and Coming in From The Cold, were previously traditionally published.
Retailer Breakdown
23% Avon Addicts Program
16% Amazon.com
14% NetGalley.com
12% Fountain Bookstore
10% Scribd.com
6% Public Library
6% Review Copies
4% Kindle Unlimited
2% Audible Romance Package
2% Barnes and Noble
2% BetterWorldBooks.com
2% Harlequin.com
2% Fresh Fiction Subscription Box
Other Numbers
53% of reviews were for 2018-2019 frontlist titles
10% feature characters with a mental illness or physical disability
K.E.’s Thoughts
I’d like to work on getting all the diversity numbers higher. The author of color and heroines of color numbers are up from last year but the heroes of color are down. I think this comes from a lot of interracial romance having White heroes. While I am conscious of reading a diverse array of authors I’m not intentional about it. I think putting it in numbers shows how easy it is for diversity to slip through the cracks even when you are thinking about it.
Last year I said I wanted to read more backlist and more of the used books from the piles in my closet. I failed that pretty hard. I think I may have bought more used books and only read a total of one backlist book.
Other Reading Tracking Resources :
Sarah Wendell @ Smart Bitches Trashy Books Reading Spreadsheet
FryeFly’s Book Blog’s Reading Tracking Spreadsheet (2012)
Lose Time Reading’s How To Organize Your Reviews using Excel (2013)