This post literally took me all day to write yesterday (RIP my Saturday) so I hope you enjoy it. 😉 Here are my stats from last year for the things that I track! Most of this is pretty useless data but it’s data nonetheless so enjoy if you’re into that sort of thing.
Some General Stats
- In 2019 I read a total of 200 books, manga, and novellas, 150 of which were speculative fiction which equated to 75% of my reading–this is pretty usual (last year it was 74%)
- 193 New Reads and 7 Re-Reads
- Of the 200 books they consisted of 106 different series, 1 story collection, and 50 stand alone novels from 141 different authors
- Most read author — Mizuho Kusanagi (Yona of the Dawn – I binge read 20 volumes of it)
- Next most read author–Nancy Warren (those Vampire Knitting Club books keep coming out every couple of months…)
- There were 5 other instances where I read 3 books by the same author, yay for ‘binges’
Reading Goal – Read More Sequels
Forever and ever one of my reading goals is to read more sequels and finish up ongoing series. How did I do this year?
- 12 books were the FINAL book in a series (yay!)
- 45 books were the MOST RECENT book of a series (caught up for now!)
- Out of the 45 MOST RECENT, 17 of those were FIRST in a new series (welp)
- I read 59 total FIRST in a series, which is the same percent as first in series as last year (30%)
- I read 91 sequels and had a lower percent this year compared to last (46% in 2019 vs 53% in 2018) – this is because I read a bigger chunk of stand alone books
Reading Throughout the Year
I’m continuing to track my reading by month and season because it’s fun to see where any trends might lie. I always seem to have a huge month in December as I scramble to read as many books as I can before the year ends. 🙂
- I thought that December would be my most productive reading month again but I was wrong! It was my 2nd most productive month with 22 books read
- September was my most productive reading month with 29 books read, thanks to that manga marathon I went on
- November was the least productive reading month with only 12 books read
As far as the seasons go, this year was opposite of last year–I read more in Summer and Winter than I did in Spring and Fall. I guess this is really random!
Self-Published Books vs Traditionally Published Books
I didn’t have any goals regarding reading more or less self-published books. That being said, I still think I read a good amount of self-published titles. This is about the same percentages as last year only the small press grew from 3% to 11% which took small chunks of of both self-published and traditionally published.
Library Loans, Review Copies, and Book Format
Book Format
Last year I was surprised by how this stat had changed from previous years–turns out ebooks have been a game changer for me, and also caused my audiobook listening to go down a bit. This year I did see another very small dip in audio.
- I read 82 ebooks in 2019 vs 90 in 2018 and only 6 in 2017!
- Ebooks were 41% of my reading this past year (vs 44% last year)
- I read slightly less number of audiobooks again — 63 in 2019 vs 69 in 2018 and 74 in 2017
- Percent of audiobooks read went down again, just slightly, was 32% last year (compare to 34% in 2018 and 72% of my total reading in 2017!)
- Percent of physical books went up to 27% (vs 22% both last year and in 2017)
Library Loans
My library loans went up again in 2019, I had a total of 42 compared to last year in which I had 22 library loans, and a whopping 50 in 2017. A lot of this was due to the binge reading I did of the Yona of the Dawn manga.
- Library books made up 21% of my total reading for 2019 – this is a much higher percent than I had thought it would be!
Here’s the breakdown of library books by format:
| Audiobooks | 18 |
| Ebooks | 0 |
| Physical books | 24 |
| Total | 42 |
Review Copies and ARCs
I have tried to slow down on accepting review requests and getting ARC’s–mainly because it’s a lot of pressure to read under a deadline, and yet somehow I ended up reading two more books for review than last year.
Going forward I’m going to think hard about which books to accept for review and whether a review copy is worth it when it makes things feel like work. I’m only going to go forward with ARCs for books which I’m already extremely excited to read. This mood reader needs less stress in her life, not more!
Here’s the breakdown of the ARC’s and review copies by format:
| Review Books | ARC | Review Copy | Total |
| Ebook | 12 | 7 | 19 |
| Physical | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 26 |
Genres, Subgenres, and Publication Year
Genres
Once again Fantasy is tops for me, followed by Romance. I would like to read more mystery at some point but I don’t see that number improving anytime soon with my current reading plans.
| Genre | # of Books | Percent |
| Fantasy | 128 | 64% |
| Science Fiction | 21 | 10.50% |
| Horror | 1 | 0.50% |
| Romance | 43 | 21.50% |
| Mystery | 4 | 2% |
| Other Fiction | 1 | 0.50% |
| Nonfiction | 2 | 1% |
Subgenres
Once again for speculative fiction I’ve done a breakdown by subgenre to the best of my ability. Genres and subgenres (especially) can be tricky because stuff overlaps and often things fit into multiple categories or sometimes none! I put them where they felt right to me. The ones that I couldn’t figure out a specific subgenre for I put under a general ‘fantasy’ label.
- Epic Fantasy was my most read subgenre with 38 books
- Historical Fantasy was my next highest read subgenre with 22 books
YA vs Adult
69% of the books I read were Adult vs 30% YA. Compare this to last year with 76% Adult and 24% YA, 2017 is 72% Adult vs 28% YA–not a huge change but I definitely read more YA this year than previously.
| # of Books | Percent | |
| Adult | 138 | 69% |
| YA | 60 | 30% |
| Middle Grade | 2 | 1% |
Publication Year
I think this is a fun one to track, just to see how many new books I’m reading vs backlist books. Once again no surprise to see I read mostly newer books in 2019 — 83.5% of the books I read were published within the last five years!
- The oldest book I read was published in 1975–‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
- The newest book I read will be published Jan 14th 2020–A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen
- I read books published in 24 different years (compared to 30 last year)
- In 2019 83.5% of the books I read were published in the last 5 years vs 71% in 2018 and 48% in 2017–I’ve definitely been reading mostly newer books!
- the most read year was 2019 with 105 books!
- The next most read year was 2018 with 20 books–looks like the majority of my reading was new releases
I’m really hoping that this year I will see a bigger range of years as my goal in reading from my TBR pile should open me up to tons of backlists from all different eras of SFF. But we’ll see how it goes!
Here’s a breakdown of books read by decade:
| Decade Published | # of Books Read |
| 1970’s | 1 |
| 1980’s | 5 |
| 1990’s | 3 |
| 2000’s | 4 |
| 2010’s | 186 |
| 2020’s | 1 |
Diversity of Books and Authors
Diversity of Authors
Once again I’ve broken down my diversity stats by overall books read and then by just the SFF books I’ve read. I’ve filled these out to the best of my ability but some mistakes have occurred.
Total Books Read:
- Out of the TOTAL 200 books 23 (11.5%) were by male authors, while 174 (87%) were by female authors, with 3 (1.5%) co-authored by male and female teams. I read zero books by non-binary authors
- Out of the 141 unique authors, 16% were male, 82% were female, and 2% were male/female co-author teams
- Out of the TOTAL 200 books 26.5% were written by an author of color while 73.5% were written by white authors
- Out of the 141 unique authors, 20% were an author of color while 80% were white authors
- Out of the TOTAL 200 books 13.5% were written by LBGTQ+ authors
- Out of the 141 unique authors 14% openly identify as LGBTQ+
Speculative Fiction Books Only:
- Out of 150 SFF books 22 (15%) were by male authors, while 125 (83%) were by by female authors, with 3 (2%) co-authored by male and female teams
- Out of 107 unique SFF authors, 20% were male, 78% were female, and 2% were male/female co-author teams
- Out of 150 SFF books 45 (30%) were written by an author of color while 105 (70%) were written by white authors
- Out of 107 unique SFF authors, 21% were an author of color while 79% were white authors
- Out of 150 SFF books 14% were written by authors who openly identify as LGBTQ+
- Out of 107 unique SFF authors, 17% were an author who openly identifies as LGBTQ+
Interesting changes here compared to last year. Although, next year I’m probably going to see significant changes in these stats again because I’ll mostly be reading from owned books and a lot of my older backlist books are very white and very straight. I guess it does depend how far I delve into the backlist though….
Diversity Within Books
Once again I didn’t do a great job of filling out my spreadsheet as I read books and instead filled it in a couple of times in huge chunks so this may not be 100% accurate as I was going off of my memory. Still, I think it’s fairly accurate.
Total Books Read:
- 32% female protagonists, 14% male protagonists, 52% combination of female/male/non-binary protagonists, and .5% non-binary protagonists
- There were also a lot of books (104 total) with two or more protagonists that were a combination of male, female, and non-binary genders.
- 37% of books had protagonists of color (vs 22% last year)
- 56% of books had some LBGTQ+ characters (whether protagonists or side-characters (vs 38% last year)
- 29% of books had LBGTQ+ protagonists
Speculative Fiction Books Only:
- The percentages for protagonist gender in SpecFic is 38% female, 14% male, 47% combination, 1% n/a (there was an artbook)
- 70 books in total had a combination of male, female, and non-binary protagonists
- 42% of books had protagonists of color (vs 20% last year)
- 63% of books had some LBGTQ+ characters (vs 44% last year)
- 30% of books had LBGTQ+ protagonists
Goodreads Ratings
I tend to rate books based on how they made me feel and how they were executed as a secondary, so my ratings tend to be a little on the higher side. Also, for my book reviews I do often break things down by a half a star and I can’t do that on goodreads, so I either rounded up or rounded down when rating there.
- I had once again had ZERO 1-star books and only two 2 star books
- I had the same amount of 4-star and 5-star reads (84 each)
If you want to check out what my top reads were for 2019 you can see that post here, if you missed it.
In Summary
Once again, that was A LOT to digest. I mainly track these stats and do these posts for my own curiosity about my reading habits, but I hope that others can get something out of it too. Overall, 2019 was another great reading year with lots of fantastic books! Looking forward to all that 2020 has to offer–this should be a pretty interesting year with my reading goal of reading mostly books already in my TBR pile. 🙂
Do any of you have any reading stats to share? I’d love to see what others track, or interesting challenges people do. Leave a note in the comments, looking forward to hearing from you!
Way Too Fantasy 
As a stat-lover I can say ‘Saturday well-spent’.
It’s amazing when you sit down at 10am, look up and think ‘ahh, lunch will have to be my evening meal, then’.
Lol yeah. I didn’t expect it to take all day but it was a lot of data.
I love a stat post and your are great. I loved your sub genre for the speculative fiction but what is Fantasy Manners? I’m finishing up my stat post and there are tons of pretty graphs in there so look out for it next week 😁🤓
Thanks! Fantasy of Manners is like comedy of Manners except with fantasy. Think of it as stories involving navigating society and all its trappings akin to a Jane Austen novel or The Importance of Being Earnest. One of the earliest examples of something being called fantasy of manners is Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw (which I still haven’t read for some reason). Good luck with your stats post!
Interesting! I’ll check it out 🙂 Thanks!
This is amazing! When I started reading I wished that there would be tables… and there were. Only been interacting with the book community a month or so and this is my first encounter with book stats and I loved it.
I hope your 2019 year is reading was as enjoyable as it was productive.
Thanks! Lots of people do stats posts and track different things. I think it’s fun to see what others like to track. It was definitely very enjoyable! Thanks again!
Wow! Those are some amazing stats. (I do a lot more rereading, which is a stress thing, I suppose).
Almost all my rereading was due to stress (I reread one book twice this year!). It’s also why I read a lot of romance–it can be a great escape.
Every year when I see posts like this I want to start a spreadsheet so I can have my own stats, but I never get around to it. Maybe this will be the year! I love all these stats, and congrats on reading 200 books😁
The spreadsheet can be a lot of work. I’m not good with formulas so I usually have to calculate all the stats manually and that’s why it took all day haha. Thanks, Tammy!
I love reading everyone’s end of the year stats, but never create my own. Maybe one of these days I’ll want to know about my own reading habits up close and personal. Great post!
Thanks! It’s a lot of work, but it can be fun to look at the data and see if there are trends. 🙂
Well- RIP to your Saturday but it’s a lovely post! Makes me wish I had worked harder on my own, even though I still feel like I gave up most of my Saturday too. Looks like you had a fantastic year though! 200 books / 65,000 pages is amazing!
Hah, thanks! Looking forward to checking out your stats post! They are a ton of work to do. If I were good at excel formulas and better about putting in the data throughout the year it probably wouldn’t have taken as long lol. 🙂
I’m actually okay with those- I’m just not creative enough to think of all the stats I want to track at the beginning of the year and I was too lazy to go back and add all the info I needed at the end. Maybe this year I’ll start on the right foot though!
I think once you start doing it you’ll think of things you’re curious about enough to track. 🙂
Maybe! I usually just make a list of each book with the author, read date, genre, format, and any notes about background/nationality. But now that you mention it publishing and page count would probably be useful too.
Even genre and format are interesting stats to track. I have never done page count, that one seems cool!
Oh I loved seeing your stast! These type of posts are my favourite end of the year posts 🙂
(www.evelynreads.com)
Thanks, Evelyn! I love stats posts too. 🙂
Amazing statistics! I wish I read enough in a year to get comprehensive statistics like this – until then, I’m content to live vicariously through others!
Thanks!
This post is amazing! I can’t believe the amount of work you must have put in to get all of this written down!
Thanks! It was a lot of work lol. But worth it!
Lol! That’s a great Saturday then. I enjoy looking at book stats. I plan to do the same as you and be more selective about what ARCs I request. It does feel like work sometimes to read them.
Thanks! Yeah, I just feel like the obligation of ARCs weighs so heavily on me sometimes.
Wow, this is seriously amazing! I can’t imagine doing this myself, and by that I mean keeping track to even the sub-genre, because I’m just way too disorganized for that! But whenever I see awesome posts like this, it does make me want to try 😂 Do you take note of these details weekly or monthly or… every time you finish a book? Well done on compiling and summarizing these stats, Lisa!
Thanks! I’m not all that organized though, I really didn’t start filling out my spreadsheet until December and then that took forever because so many books and I had to go back and look things up…lol. I aim to do better at tracking throughout the year this year. Previously I’d update my spreadsheet at least once a month.
These are really cool graphs, especially your stats by month and season! That gets me curious on how my own reading volume varies by month. I also wish Goodreads would do half-stars already, I would love to get a more detailed look on my ratings, but I am happy to say my 2019 was 1-star free as well! 😀
Thanks! I really do wish GR would get on board with half stars, it’s kind of annoying they don’t.
Yay for zero 1-stars!
200 books! This is amazing, congrats! 😀
Thank you!
Oh my goodness Lisa, as a statistics lover this post is GOALS! Hopefully I remember to do more breakdowns when it comes to looking back at 2020 in reading.
Thanks Kal! I’m using your sheet and it’s awesome!! I’ve never really tracked my blog stats like that before so I think it will be super useful. I’ll probably transfer some data to my old template at the end of the year so I can do some of my usual breakdowns though because I track some things that are a bit off the beaten path lol. 🙂
I like a lot of the things you do track, so please do keep doing it haha!
Thanks!
Wow, what a great year! I love how you did all of your stats and how seriously thorough you are. This has got to be one of my favorite stats posts so far haha.
I love how you broke down the type of books, too! I think you did a great job at reading more sequels–that’s something that I’ve been really trying to more actively do, I have so many started series that I just need to buckle down and catch up on. RIP to your Saturday, but wow I think it totally paid off. I hope your 2020 is just as productive and full of exciting new books. 🙂
Thank you! It probably wouldn’t have taken so long if I were good at formulas in excel but it was worth the work lol. Series has been a major concern or mine for several years. I need to stop starting so many new ones and concentrate on the ones I’m already reading. 🙂 Thanks again and good luck with your 2020 reading!
A great year and I loved reading your stats even if I am useless when it comes to such things.
Lynn 😀
Thanks, Lynn! I’m not that great at the stats thing either, this whole process would be smoother if I knew how to do formulas in excel lol.
Loved looking at your stats! Sounds like you had an amazing reading year! Congrats on reading so much! I always think December will be my most productive reading month- but it’s always something random 😉 that’s a great percentage of library books. I think it makes a lot of sense about ARCs. Fantasy tops my list as well. I think I largely read books published in the last 5 years as well. And I read mostly fantasy too. Amazing that you read so many books you liked!
Thank you, it was pretty amazing. December usually is for me but this year I surprised myself lol. That and the percent of library books was all thanks to the Yona of the Dawn manga–I’m really lucky my library system had them all in stock! Glad we have some things in common there. 🙂