Low Rating Books vs Low Rating Books (There is a Difference)

So, a lot of bloggers have commented on low ratings some have retracted their ratings systems, others don't see a point in posting low rating reviews, or a myriad of other opinions and combinations of dealing with things. I will continue to post low ratings and negative reviews because I blog to express my opinions on all books whether good or bad. I think it's important for you to know what I like and what I don't so that you, the reader, know what things annoy me because they may in fact be things you like.

Aside from things I dislike though, there are books which I think have structural flaws (shallow main characters, information dumping, implausible settings, lack of research, etc). So from now on, for low rating books (anything under 3.0 so a rating of 2.5 or less) I will make an extra notation as to whether the low rating is due to mostly structural or mostly elements that I just didn't like (love at first sight for example). Granted, I will make that clear in the reviews, but I get that some people only look at the star rating line ^.~

I know a lot of you have opinions on this subject so tell me what you think!

Thoughts on Review Policy Changes

from Flying Buttress Blog
As I've spent more time in the book blogging community, I have found the need to amend my review policy as circumstances changed and I learned more (<- was a noob).

At the beginning, I had more time (school is a soul, I mean time sucking monster) so I could have a really short turnaround time on reviewing books (there were also fewer requests). My turnaround time is now in the 4-5 week range and is only looking to get longer. (<- optimism right there)

Other changes I've needed to make include specifically stating which genres I absolutely won't read because it does no good for any of the parties involved if I waste time reading a book I know I have a high chance of hating and adding information on what I will participate in (and under what circumstances). I've also been adding some information as to what exceptions I am willing to make although I don't think anyone has taken advantage of the loopholes therein yet. (<- is how a law system 10 miles high of paper started)

I've been thinking about my no self-published policy lately because I had a request that came in from a self-published author which specifically noted that I don't take self-pub requests but that this manuscript had been through a professional editor, was short, and fit one of the main genres I enjoy reading. I accepted this request mostly because this author had actually taken the time to read my policy, noted that they had, and addressed my underlying concern that there was no professional editing (the fact that it was short and in a genre I enjoy reading helped too).

In light of this, I'm considering amending my policy with an addendum about how a self-published book could in fact be considered for review instead of outright rejected, but considering the number of self-pub requests I receive despite stating that I won't accept them... I think this might be a useless exercise on my part.(I think the OCD part of me wouldn't mind the completeness though >.>)

What do you guys think? amend? don't amend? Also, do you guys find yourselves changing your policy often (when, why)?

Dear Brandon Sanderson - A Letter About His LGBT Views

This is in response to the post Sanderson wrote on homosexuality

I have read and loved your books, and even before reading you books, I knew that you were a member of the LDS church, which was a flag to me that your views on homosexuality would likely not be as liberal as mine. You never spoke out about homosexuality before so this was fine because you did not use your platform to speak out against what I believed therefore my support of your works would not be increasing the voice of those who oppose various aspects of homosexuality.

Now that you have spoken out, I have to reassess the situation.

From what I've read, it seems like your stance follows something like this: Gay sex is a sin although being gay is not because we do not know how being gay comes about. You also don't think being gay is something that can be cured, but acting on being gay by sleeping with someone of the same gender is a sin. I am garnering this from your statement:
"No, I don't believe that homosexuality can—in many cases, at least—be treated and 'cured.' I do believe, however, that impulses of attraction between people of the same gender are something that can and should be resisted, in the same way that my impulses of attraction toward women who are not my wife can and should be resisted."

Now, how I interpret your comments are as follows: You can be gay, but you must remain celibate or you will go to hell because you have committed a sin.

This, while seeming to be a stance that tries to satisfy all the parties involved by not calling gay people inherently bad and also still subscribing to the fact that homosexuality is unacceptable, results in something really stupid. Even those who have dedicated their lives to celibacy fall off the bandwagon, and you expect lay people who happen to be gay to be celibate?

Let me clarify how I come to the conclusion that you think gays must be celibate. Gay people (I'm not going to go into a discussion on bisexuals) want to have sex with people of the same gender. This means that they do not want to have sex with people of the opposite gender. Now, you are saying that they should completely refrain from having sex with people of the same sex so that option is out. They don't want to have sex with people of the opposite sex, and forcing them to do so would be the equivalent of RAPE so that option is also out. Since the only two options for not remaining celibate are out, it follows that they must be celibate.

So, you expect gays to be celibate, which is quite honestly a very unrealistic expectation for anyone. I would really like to know how you expect something like that to play out because given that people are terrible at remaining celibate, gays will go to hell. Essentially, this stance is no different from saying being gay is a sin because of reality (I don't think this is an unfair accusation because we live with reality, and our beliefs need to take that into account).

I'm still not entirely sure where I stand on supporting your works in the future, but I hope you continue to think about these issues as you mentioned you were doing. I will wait to see what you decide before making a final judgement.

Sincerely,
Sniffly Kitty
I do still think that you write awesome books

Edit: FYI, to any authors reading this, I take special consideration of review requests which include gay main/major characters. Books that fall under this category are still subject to the same strictness for what I consider to be quality, but I will be more willing to accept such a review request if you state in your request that your book has gay main/major characters.

Edit 2: I will grant that Sanderson is a lot more respectful to the situation than some others, and I'm glad that he accepts gays as human beings.

Re-Reading Books

I used to re-read books that I loved all the time because I wanted to wander with the characters again. Some books even after having read them 3-4 time through, I would discover things I had missed. Tamora Pierce books are definitely ones which I kept re-reading, and I've read them so many times that my copies are falling apart (I'm trying to get another set of the full collection in the covers that I loved as a teen, but it's a slow process).

Ever since I began blogging though, I've only re-read a couple books because I have so many books to read. it almost seems silly to take the time to read a book which I've already read when so many more are clamoring for my attention for a first time read through. This makes me somewhat sad because I really enjoy going through some of my books again, and being able to do so is a big part of the reason why I own so many books.

I'm currently re-reading Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss because I needed to remember all the details before reading the second one. I'd been meaning to do this re-read for over a month now and have finally gotten around to it. I just hope I dont forget the details again before I get around to starting the second book The Wise Man's Fear.

Do any of you feel like you don't have to time to spend on getting reacquainted with old books? I know that book bloggers in general start to feel that they have to divert a lot of their reading time over to review books, and this can lead to a sense of resentment especially because it makes what we love into a chore at times. Not having the time to read a beloved book again is kind of an extension of this, and while I've made a deal with myself to read more books for me than for review, I feel like I need to take into account this re-reading thing as well.

I vow to try and revisit old friends (books that I love) more often than once every 4-5 months. For now though, I'm thoroughly enjoying Name of the Wind because OMG it is amazing. I'm not sure how I forgot all it's amazing-ness, but here it is again. I will also get a chance to write a proper review for it this time around too ^.^

Book Selling Math for Book Bloggers

Of course there has been a hullaboo over whether book bloggers sell books. Today there was a post up at The Story Siren's which featured an anonymous author (Author X) answering questions about the correlation between book bloggers and book selling. So, I decided to do some math because hard numbers are better than anecodotal events where people remember one particular situation.

I'm going to have to make a whole bunch of educated assumptions for this exercise. If you think something is flagrantly wrong, please feel free to correct me.


Photo taken from ieslaroda-bilingue.wikispaces.com
Let's say 50 bloggers are sent copies of a book to review 25 get an ARC and 25 get a finished copy, and of the 50, 6 don't read the book and 10% of those who do read it don't like it. I'm going to assume that the publisher picked pretty well the people who would like the book and that the book is a good book since if a book is poorly written or is badly timed (say a vampire book right now when everyone is basically over vampires) then no amount of marketing is going to save it.

So based on these numbers lets do some costs:
$2 per finished copy in printing costs = $2 x 25 finished copy bloggers = $50
$3 per ARC copy in printing costs = $3 x 25 ARC bloggers = $75
Each book costs $2 to ship = $2 x 50 bloggers = $100
$40 for a person to take care of shipping stuff for half a day at $10/hour
Total Costs: $265

Ok, now for some more assumptions based on what Author X said in the Story Siren interview.
- 5 people will buy the book based on a blogger recommendation.
- I'm going to add to this that a number of people will become interested in the book say 30 (I'm going to refer to these as interests). A typical review may get say 150 unique views through all channels and a positive say generates interest in say 20% of the people who read it.
- Say the reviews that are bad generate a negative amount of interests say 15 per negative
- The blogs that don't review the book are likely to at least post that they received the book so they generate maybe 3 interest apiece

I'm going to assume that about 3/5 of the people that buy based on a single blogger recommendation get the hardcover ($15) and the other 2/5 get the mass market paperback ($8) since the promotion is likely happening around the time of the book's initial release. I'm going to say that more will buy at release or close to release rather than wait another year for the mass market.
Math:
40 * 5 = 200 books
120 of them are hardcover = 120 * $15 = $1800
80 of them are mass market = $640
Total Revenue: $2440


A note about interest, basically a lot of people look through a number of reviews, cover announcements, etc. before they actually buy a book. I'm using the term "interests" as a way to quantify this process.
Let's pretend that if a person gains 5 interests they buy the book at the same ratio of hardcover to mass market paperback. I'm going to say that 50% of the interests generated will go nowhere.
Math:
15*40 blogs who liked = 600
15 * 4 blogs who disliked = 60
3 * 6 blogs who merely mentioned the book = 18
Total: 1122 interests
922 * 50% = 561 interests
That translates to roughly 112 books sold in addition
67 hardcovers * $15 = $1005
45 hardcovers * $8 = $360
Total Revenue: $1365

I'm going to add one more layer of complexity from the people that read and like the book after buying it from seeing reviews and such. Basically I'm going to quantify a single step of word of mouth again by using interests.
Ok, so 312 books were sold. Let's say 70% of those people like the book so 218 people. Further, let's say each of them then generates on average 3 interests.
654 * 50% = 327 interests which amount to something.
That's another 65 books sold.
Say these are mostly mass market paperbacks 40 vs 25 Hardcovers
40 * $8 = $200
25 * $15 = $375
Total Revenue: $575

So that's 377 books sold for a revenue of $4380

Which means, for every $1 of marketing money spend there is $16.53 of revenue

I'm not sure whether this is a good amount or not as I have no idea of the industry standards on this.


Picture taken from Big Bold Business
But let's look at a signing:
Say it costs $350 in airfare to go to a signing (I know I'm low-balling this number) and hotel is $100 plus you have to feed the author $40 for the day. I don't think most bookstores charge to hold the event so no cost there.
Total Costs: $490

Say 70 people show up (this actually seems a bit high but I'm trying to give lots of leeway). I'm going to assume that all these people would have bought a book although only 15 (Edit: say 25) as a direct cause of the event and that all the ones bought are hardcovers. And perhaps another 10 buy a mass market paperback of an old book.
25 * $15 (Hardcovers) = $375 (edited for the 25 instead of 15)
10 * $8 = $80
Total Revenue: $455

ROI for a book signing: $1 of marketing dollar earns $0.93(edited for the 25 hardcovers instead of 15)

Obviously the marketing dollars don't match up quite as much, but there are ripple effects for an author that doesn't take the time to meet fans. Also, it's part of good relations with bookstores, so I will admit I'm not capturing all the future revenue from such an event. The speculation for those kinds of things though are far out of the realm of my experience so anything I would come with beyond the immediate effects of a signing would be pure BS.

Edit: The bottom line is that $1 per marketing spent on book blogs results in $16.53 in revenue for a publisher (based on my assumptions)

The Sweet Spot - Goodreads Ratings

You're getting pictures of food because yum!
When you go to Goodreads to look at a book, I'm almost positive you pay attention to the aggregate rating for that book because aggregate ratings tend to be a more accurate predictor of whether a book is good than any single rating. This, at least, is the reason why I pay quite a lot of attention to that little number right under the title of a book.

Now, for me at least, the sweet spot for that number tends to be anything 4.01 and above (I think the highest I've seen is 4.53 given the criteria which follow). This applies only when the book has 100+ ratings, has also already been published, and is within genres that I enjoy. Basically, books that fit these criteria have a much higher chance of me enjoying them. Books which fall between 3.80 and 4.01 tend to be hit or miss, and anything below that has a pretty high probability that I won't like the book.

Why These Ranges?
I'm a pretty jaded reader as far as readers go as evidenced by my Goodreads account - my average rating for all books is 2.96, and I've read and rated 1430 of them. As such, my standards for ratings is pretty stringent so the difference between good and bad is very narrow. Perhaps you guys also have a system when checking out books on Goodreads which is similar to mine but with slightly different numbers.

Why 100+ Ratings?


Now I crave cookies
In order to actually get a good aggregate estimate, I have found that you need quite a few ratings in order for some sort of consensus to arise. On Goodreads at least, this number seems to be 100 although the higher the number, the better the aggregate estimate is in general (in statistics they would say 30, but I've found 30 to be very much inadequate).

Why Published?
This is important because publishers tend to target pretty specifically reviewers who will like the book. Obviously, this is to the publishers' benefit because they want good reviews for the book when it comes out in order to boost sales. Thus, I tend take high numbers pre-publication and even for the first couple months post publication with a grain of salt.

Granted, I realize that I am sort of shooting my own foot since I am a reviewer of books, but hear me out. As a reader, this is where the individual reviews of the book become very important early on. Because you can't trust the aggregate numbers as much, it is important for a reader to find reviewers who have similar reading tastes. If you know that when a reviewer likes something, you will like it and ALSO that when they dislike something, you will dislike it (a good percentage of the time), then you should (perhaps again obviously) pay particular attention to that reviewer.

Why Genres I Enjoy?


These pictures have helped to keep your attention
Erm... because if I don't like the genre to begin with it really doesn't matter how good the book seems to be, I'm probably not going to like it. I will admit that there have been some cases where a book with a lot of general buzz will be to my liking even though it doesn't fall into sci-fi and fantasy although I'm not sure I've ever met a pure horror book which I've liked.

P.S. Despite the silliness of the photos, I hope the article itself was interesting ^.^

I Want Virtual Now

In reply to an article over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Quick summary: They want to have kiosks where you can browse a physical bookstore and then buy the e-book right there in the store in part so you don't feel so bad about browsing and then going home to buy an e-book somewhere else.

This is a great idea for a bookstore because the store itself still sells books. That's not really what I want to talk about though. I want to take this idea one step further. I want a virtual bookstore that I can browse like a physical bookstore, and I want it now instead of in 10 years.

What I mean is: I want to be able to 'enter' a virtual bookstore, where books have been shelved by type and alphabetized or whatnot. It has to look like bookshelves. Then I want to be able to 'walk' up to that shelf and pull books off of those shelves and look around that book. Since this is digital, maybe there would be some sort of preview option >.> or whatnot.

Of course, virtual reality being what it is now... may not get to that point. Also, that kind of interface has yet to pick up any sort of standard, and I'm just living in a dreamworld. I would love for this to be a reality though ^.^

Views on Sex and Books I Enjoy

This is not a discussion of what goes on in the bedroom (or wherever else you decide to do it), but the discussion of sex always raises warning flags so I'm foin to premise this by saying that there is nothing explicit in this post although younger ones(say 13 and under) should probably still steer clear.

I am pretty conservative when it comes to sex. I don't think one-night stands or sex on the first (or even 2-5) date is a good idea. I've thought about this lately, and I believe that my stance on these issues translates to what I enjoy reading.

What this means in terms of books is that I enjoy (by far) books where the main couple take awhile to get to know each other before ending up in bed together. There are of course some caveats to this which allows a pass for sex as a result of rape and/or prostitution.

Granted, having a more slow moving couple doesn't automatically mean I will like a book, but having casual sex seems to make a book an automatic dislike for me. What about you guys?

Please Don't Twist My Arm

I'm sure someone has asked you before, what is your favorite book. Maybe you can answer this definitively or well maybe you're like me and can't really. I like to say that Kushiel's Dart is my favorite book when asked this question because it's just easier to have an answer but the truth is, I have many favorite books so please don't make me choose.

Giveaway Wrap-up - An Effectiveness Study

So the giveaway has been closed, winners have been announced, the prizes have been ordered, and now it's time for a bit of wrap-up. Many of you guys like to host giveaways because well everyone loves a giveaway. So, instead of the regularly scheduled reviews, I'm giving my thoughts today on what works and what doesn't at least in retrospect of this contest.


Twitter
This seems to work ok if you can get retweeted. I would suggest sending an @ReadersWin for your own tweeting. She will retweet any giveaway that you send her way. If you ask people to tweet the entry for bonus entries and such, I think 55 or so people out of the 146 people who entered took advantage of this, and of those tweets there were 94 clickthroughs.


Blog Posts and Sidebars
I admit to tracking this incorrectly... so I don't actually know whether these did good or not >.< I think they helped to keep people aware of the giveaway in general.


Linkys
-Saturday Situation hosted on Pure Imaginationn's blog worked pretty well usually getting 15 or so clickthroughs per listing
-Got Great Giveaways hosted by I'm a Reader Not a Writer worked really well, usually sending about 40 clickthroughs per listing

I also listed the giveaway in a few of the mommy/frugal/giveaway blogs and while they did send a few visits (3-4) it may or may not be worth your time to do so.

Other Sites
I also did a few listings on Book Blogs Ning which sent a bit of traffic maybe 20 clicks total.

Goodreads giveaway groups listings faired pretty badly with only a 5-6 views per listing and maybe 1-2 clickthroughs.


So, certain linkys work great. Having people tweet the giveaway for entries aggregately works. You may consider other sites but effort versus results ratio is not that great. I should really submit to some of the really big giveaway listing site next time and track hits from them as well, so until next time folks~~

What is to Come?

I keep my lists on GoodReads up to date with books that I have read and take part in Teaser Tuesday, but I am curious as to whether you guys want to see more of what is coming up for review and how you would like to see those books? Do you want me to post up In My Mailbox, maybe list up something at the end of my reviews, just have currently reading stuff in my sidebar, or maybe nothing at all?

Reading Other Genres?

So, I would imagine that most of my readers spend a significant portion of their time reading fantasy and specifically urban and paranormal fantasy (more recently also dystopian books with the popularity of The Hunger Games). I was wondering what kinds of other books y'all like to read since I also review a lot of other books here. This is mostly to get a feel for your reading demographics, and also to satisfy my curiosity.

I would love it if you left a comment too (especially if you choose other)!

What other genres do you like to read?
	Cyberpunk
	Epic Fantasy
	Hard Sci-Fi
	Historical Fiction
	Mainstream Fiction
	Mystery
	Adult Romances
	Thriller
	Other
pollcode.com free polls

I am Frightened by This

Many of us love the new spate of dystopian fiction that has been released, but we are comforted by the fact that it does not happen at home. In bits and pieces though, those police states are coming home (I'm speaking about the US, but I can see other countries following suit).

Your online privacy or the choice for anonymity could come to an end with US citizens receiving a unique internet ID. The justification? well it's easier than remember a whole host of passwords. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/09/obama-administration-moves-forward-with-unique-internet-id-for-a/

In the writing, it is said that we will have a choice that it will be implemented by the private sector. But if this is being implemented at the government level, how much privacy will soon be eroded?

I welcome any additional information you might have about this bill.

Advice for Bloggers: Comments

Is a comment!

This isn't the start of a series, just a small piece of advice.

Dear New Bloggers,

You want to have comments on your posts because then your blog doesn't feel as empty so don't make us commenters, who are willing to take the time to comment, jump through so many hoops. Jumping through hoops makes people less likely to comment, which you as a new blog can't afford.

You are a NEW blog you're not going to get much spam. I have as yet to get ANY spam despite allowing anonymous comments without an 'Are you human?' test.

When you get to be a big blog, then you can afford to put lots more moderation on your comments. For now, stick to EASY AS POSSIBLE.

Sincerely,
Sniffly Kitty

What Gets You Excited About Books?

photo moderately related
It's been awhile since I had a pure thought post so here we go!

Oftentimes, unless I happen to have already read something by an author, I judge a book by its cover and title. This means, I only read reviews on books that have already caught my interest this way.

If the reviews and synopsis are good, then I am properly excited about the book. Perhaps I should be doing things the other way around, with looking at reviews first, but there are so many reviews and books out there that I need to have a quicker way to decide. This quick judgement of mine is now helped a bit by rating aggregation from goodreads especially with books which don't have interesting covers or titles.

What do you guys think? What gets you excited?

The Lovely Kindle

I have in my possession a lovely Kindle 3. It is beautiful. It is thin. It is full of just enough features. I think this may be a life-changing kind of thing. Yes, the revelation is a bit silly, but I can bring my books with me LOTS and LOTS of them. It almost makes paper books obsolete except for the part where I like owning paper books.

I am a tad sad that the Kindle doesn't support epub although apparently there is an app in development by a third party which supports epub called Booki.sh although it only seems to support books they have listed so far.

Anyone else have thoughts about the Kindle? Perhaps thinking about purchasing one? If you are, I recommend!

Holiday Cookie Swaps

I read an article in San Francisco Chronicle Magazine issue that cookie swaps are all the rage. I wasn't aware that they were all that popular.

For the uninitiated, a cookie swap is a party where each person/family attending brings a whole bunch of cookies (several dozen). There is a nice bit of mingling and showing off of baking skills/recipes. At the end of the day, the participants bring home an assortment of cookies.

I've been to one, and it was actually a lot of fun especially because I am quite partial (erm... I LOVE!!!!) cookies. Granted, not being a mom or whatnot, perhaps it makes sense that the circle I run in wouldn't have something like this.

Have any of you guys taken part in a swap? What was it like, would you hold one, etc?

Book Blogger Gender Ratio

Last Friday was the first time I ever took part in the Book Blog Hop & Follow Friday, and it was an exhilarating experience. What I noticed though was that most of the bloggers in the the book sphere seem to be women. There are gender ratio skews in spheres like tech blogs and cooking blogs, but reading I thought was fairly applicable/accessible to guys and gals.

It may be that I had a biased sample, what do you guys think? And if you think what I'm seeing is true, why might this be true?

Laments of a Book Queue

Ever since I started using GoodReads, I've noticed a disturbing phenomenon - my to read queue just keep getting longer. I like to think that I'm a pretty fast reader, but try as I might to get through my list, it still keeps growing.

I wonder if this happens to anyone else whether or not they use a site to keep track of their reading habits?

Is it just me? YA Book Covers

Lately, I've been looking through a lot of the book covers of just published or soon to be published YA book, and I can't help but notice that there are a lot of gorgeous ones out there. Granted these books are generally targeted at girls so pretty covers make sense. These covers though are the kind where I want to own the book just because the covers are so pretty not that I actually care what the book is about. Is this just me or do you guys feel this way too?