Goodreads Choice Awards 2013

[owly]

Time to vote https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2013
Good general overview of what's popular for the year.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by owly

Time to vote https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2013
Good general overview of what's popular for the year.

Or, rather, "what's popular for the year among books that were published in the US".

It doesn't actually say so anywhere for the main voting, but it's in the rules for write-in votes - only books published (in English) in the US during a specific time period are eligible.

In a way, I can understand this, but on the other hand, it's not really "readers' choice" like this - there were books in YA and middle-grade categories that I'd have preferred to vote for or nominate over those already there, books that were published in English, in 2013, but ... in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada. Not in the US, either because it will only get released there next year or because there is no US publisher for the book at all.

So I'm a little miffed - not so much that they only count US-published books but that they don't make it clear and obvious it's a restricted competition, not a general "Goodreads choice", considering Goodreads is a genuinely international major site.

(And also, this makes write-in votes from non-Americans difficult - there'll be a lot of wasted effort as readers outside the US can't really be expected to know if their favourite UK or Australian book was also released in the US this year or not; even checking "All editions" isn't going to be helpful as the edition information doesn't really say where the book was published.)

Other than this annoyance, I do like the awards thing. (And I'm pretty sure that the winners would all likely be US-published anyway, just because the size of the markets. Just, well, would be nice if they were up-front about it.)

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for God's sakes! I'm not even close to 2013 yet!

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for God's sakes! I'm not even close to 2013 yet!

I'm actually shocked at how recent my reading was this year. I actually read 3 books published in 2013 and two of them were quite good.

[Gazella]

Voted yesterday

[caleb72]

Unfortunately for me, I've seldom read any of the books that are listed in this award. I did vote for Hugh Howey last year - but it felt a bit strange because, if I remember rightly, his was the only book I had read on the list for that year.

So the only vote I could really cast this year would be for the books that I thought I might prefer if I got around to reading them.

Of course, given that Goodreads seems to treat ratings as an indication of anything (eg measure of excitement without having actually read the book, indicator of outrage or support etc...), perhaps my vote could be based on which cover I prefer, or which author's name has the most letters in it.

[owly]

And if you want to see previous years winners they are linked down in the right-hand corner of the page.

[kennyc]

Strangeness, looking at that list I feel like I'm living in an alternate reality. At least a few of the non-fiction books are in my TBR list and I'm looking forward to reading Madd Addam by Margaret Atwood, but otherwise.......meh!

[jersysman]

I always wanted to know who decides which books will be nominated and the criteria. Is that explained somewhere on the page? I just took a quick glance.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by jersysman

I always wanted to know who decides which books will be nominated and the criteria. Is that explained somewhere on the page? I just took a quick glance.

From their rules:

We analyze statistics from the 250 million books added, rated, and reviewed on the site in 2013 to nominate 15 books in each category. Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher. Write-in votes may be cast for eligible books with any average rating, and write-in votes will be weighted by the book’s number of ratings to determine the top five books to be added as official nominees in the Semifinal Round.

It's very much a "readers' choice" thing, i.e. there is no jury deciding on the value of the books. You could call it a popularity contest, I suppose, but it's not just as simple as bestsellers - it's bestsellers that people also turned out to genuinely enjoy, enough to rate them highly at first and then to vote for them in the contest.

I've actually read several in a few of the categories this time, amazingly, but didn't vote in more than half of the categories due to not having read any (some are on my TBR lists though, I just haven't got around to them yet).

[latepaul]

There's also a write-in option which some people are using to try to get this into the next round as a protest about the recent kerfuffle.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by latepaul

There's also a write-in option which some people are using to try to get this into the next round as a protest about the recent kerfuffle.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by kennyc

You have some kind of problem with that Kenny? Write ins are a legit means, so keep your eye rolling to yourself.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

You have some kind of problem with that Kenny? Write ins are a legit means, so keep your eye rolling to yourself.

No. If I have something to say, I'll say it, as I just did.

Keep your policing to yourself.

[DiapDealer]

Awww ... what a cute little grassroots, but ultimately ineffective, hoobey-whatie.
(the write-in "campaign", I mean)