Sarah's Book Shelves

Welcome to Part 2 of the Sarah’s Book Shelves Reader Survey results! Yesterday, I shared all the results except your questions and comments in Part 1.

Many of you had great questions and comments for me in your survey responses. Since this survey is anonymous, I can’t respond to you directly, so I’m addressing any questions/comments that warranted a response here.

2018 Reader Survey Q&A

Q: At what point should you DNF a book if it isn’t interesting or going well to start with? I read to page 66-68 is that too short or too long?

A: There’s no hard and fast rule. I believe you should DNF a book when you realize you’re not interested in it. Personally, I give a book 25% if I’m undecided and will sometimes check Goodreads reviews or contact friends who have read already it to see if I should continue. I’ve DNF’d a book after reading only one page, at the 80% mark, and everywhere in between!

Q: I would love to see an audiobook list for people who listen while doing other activities. I am training for a half-marathon and am looking for audiobooks that are easy enough to follow when I tend to occasionally zone out. People who listen while doing chores and other activities would appreciate the list, too, I think. Thanks!

A: I totally understand your frustration…I feel the same way about audiobooks! And, I actually first tried them when training for a half-marathon as well! Kindred spirits. I found that nonfiction works better for me than fiction and lighter nonfiction works best. Here are some types of audiobooks that have worked well for me and my favorite audiobooks of 2017. I also enjoy listening to podcasts (and actually prefer them to audiobooks when working out).

Also, I’m getting more and more requests for audiobook content, so I’ll be sharing them in my weekly What I’m Reading Now posts as well as posting more frequent audiobook recommendation lists.

Q: Would like to see daily posts.

A: And, I’d love to give you daily posts! But, I have two young children and don’t have extra childcare to run this blog. I fit it in in my spare time. Unfortunately, this currently doesn’t allow for daily posts, but things could possibly change in the future!

Q: Children’s recommendation of the month.

A: Children’s books would be a whole new area to keep up with and it’s not where my true love of reading lies, so I won’t be adding children’s book coverage at this time. However, the blog Booking Mama hosts a weekly link-up where bloggers can share posts related to children’s literature that I recommend checking out for children’s book recommendations.

Q: I do not like chic lit, fluffy fiction, is there anyway to differentiate?

A: I tend to use the term “Brain Candy” when I’m talking about lighter fiction that many people refer to as “chick lit.” Steer clear of books I describe using that term! I’ll also start using the differentiators “Literary Fiction” and “Fiction – Brain Candy” in my genre labels; however, categorizing a book as lighter fiction is somewhat of a judgement call…it’s different for everyone!

Q: Enrolling in email has not worked for me. Also – talking about what constitutes “literary fiction” would be nice. I’ve seen you classify some things as more “literary” that I would classify as more “light” fiction…

A: I’m sorry you’ve had trouble signing up for the email list! Please email me at sarahsbookshelves@gmail.com and I’m happy to manually sign you up.

To continue from the last question, classifying “literary” vs. “light” fiction is somewhat of a judgment call, so everyone won’t always agree on this point. Talking more about what I consider “literary” is a great idea for further discussion. I’d love it if you could email me (at sarahsbookshelves@gmail.com) some examples of books that I classified as “literary” that you considered “light” fiction and I can discuss them in a blog post.

Q: (1) I have a book club in real life, but might be fun to try an online/facebook book club with your readers. Give notice about a book and then pick a day when people will discuss/post on Facebook about it. Not sure it will work but might be worth a try and a way for your readers, who are all avid books readers I assume, to get to know each other.

(2) feature a readers recommend each week or month — guest post and/or just a recommendation from one of your readers for a book that you haven’t reviewed yet.

(3) weekly or monthly book recommendation based on reader request and parameters (similar to what NYT is doing now).

A: (1) I’ve heard from many of you that finding people to talk books with is one of your biggest reading problems. The good news is I will be starting a Facebook group for Sarah’s Book Shelves readers (as part of my forthcoming Patreon page) and will absolutely consider some sort of discussion around a particular book.

(2) I love this idea! Thanks for sharing and look out for something like this in the future.

(3) Another great idea! Let me noodle on it…

Q: I like when you promote other blogs. I’ll keep reading yours, don’t worry. I would like to find some more to read.

A: I love promoting other blogs and there are some awesome ones out there! In my monthly round-ups, I include some of my favorite posts of the month by fellow bloggers. I also share other bloggers’ content on social media, mostly on Twitter (follow me @SarahsShelves) and Pinterest (follow me here). I also have a new feature coming up that will spotlight favorite blogs: a quarterly review of my Go-To Book Recommendation Sources (many of which are my favorite bloggers).

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite book blogs:

• Gilmore Guide to Books
• Novel Visits
• Running N Reading
• It’s Book Talk
• Modern Mrs. Darcy
• That’s What She Read
• Read a Latte
• Happiest When Reading

Q: All the book blogs I’ve scanned and the few I follow seem to be directed at other bloggers. You all get ARCs, have your conversation and it’s over. By the time “just average readers” have read the book (those of us who have to wait for publication dates), the conversation has passed. Which is why I generally skip the Discussion posts. If it’s a book I’m interested in, there are probably spoilers.

A: I appreciate this feedback, especially since I discovered through this survey that less than 30% of my readers have their own blogs (so know that you’re in good company)! I’ll take this to heart moving forward.

I do try to post my book reviews on or after a book’s publication date, but you will see books pop up in my weekly What I’m Reading Now posts before their publication dates because I’m sharing what I’m reading in real time. This can be a good way to find books for your TBR list.

My regular book reviews and Read it, Skip it posts never, ever contain spoilers (I feel strongly about reviews that give too much of the plot away!), so you can feel comfortable reading those before you’ve read the book. If a post contains spoilers, it always has “Spoiler” in the post title.

Q: How would I know that a book is well written? With excellent language?

A: Such a great question and, unfortunately, a really hard one to answer! I think “well written” means something different for everyone. For me, it’s writing that speaks to me…and that’s usually simple, spare, hard-hitting prose. I’m not a fan of overly formal, flowery writing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t “good” writing. It just means it doesn’t appeal to me! I’ll often say a book has “my kind of writing” and I wrote a whole post trying to figure out what that means.

Q: Could you add direct links to the different series you do? For example, I love your pairings of the alcohol and hangover (since that is such a true reading phenomenon) but it would be nice to be able to click on a link and access all the pairings.

A: Yes – great idea! I’ll get these up soon. And, I’m thrilled you love the Alcohol & Advil pairings!

Did any of your burning questions get answered here? Always feel free to email me with your questions, suggestions, and comments at sarahsbookshelves@gmail.com.

First of all, a huge thank you to the 148 of you who took the time to complete the First Annual Sarah’s Book Shelves Reader Survey! It wasn’t the shortest survey in the world and I appreciate you taking the time to tell me about yourselves and provide feedback about the blog. And because of y’all, we now know all kinds of fun stuff about who reads this blog!

I had so much fun reading the results and getting to know you better…and I was even completely surprised by a few things! I hope you enjoy getting to know each other as much as I have…

Getting to Know You

• Almost all (97%) of you are women.
• Almost half of you are between 45 and 64 years old and another almost half are between 25 and 44.
• Just over 70% of you do not have your own blogs. This doesn’t surprise me quite as much as the other items on this list, but it’s important for me to keep in mind when I’m writing posts. The readers I hear from most in the comments section generally do have their own blogs. And, please please don’t feel like you have to have your own blog to comment here…I’d especially love to hear from all the “regular readers” out there!
• Y’all like to cook / bake, run / walk (and exercise in general), watch TV / movies, write, travel, and garden. What do most of these activites have in common? They can all be solitary activities…am I detecting some Introverts out there?
• Your favorite TV show is This is Us. Your favorite magazine / website is Real Simple. Your favorite podcast is What Should I Read Next? (Modern Mrs. Darcy‘s podcast), but the overall category winner was people who don’t listen to podcasts at all (y’all should try them…I’m getting so many great books recommendations from podcasts these days!).

A Few Surprises

• Over 75% of you do not have children at home (either because you don’t have children at all or have grown children). This absolutely floored me…maybe because I have young children at home and wrongly assumed many of my readers had a similar family situations.
• Y’all read a TON, which I knew, but I didn’t realize quite how high your numbers would be! 2/3 of you read more than 50 books a year and 1/4 of you read more than 100 books a year. Of course, I’m sure the super heavy readers are also the ones who would find it fun to complete this survey, so that could have skewed the numbers!
• When I asked you why you keep visiting Sarah’s Book Shelves, 84% of you said the book reviews! I’m so shocked because book reviews tend to get less traffic than other types of posts. But, you love them, so they’ll stick around. Glad I learned this in the survey because I’d been toying with cutting back on reviews.
• Despite the volume of cat pictures you see on #bookstagram, not a single one of you mentioned your cat when I asked what you liked to do other than read. On the contrary, some of you mentioned your dogs! So, who would’ve thought…bookworms can be dog people too!

Your General Reading Habits

• More than 50% of you like to read hard copy books (hardcover or paperback).
• You love using your local library (75% of you). And, over 50% of you buy books from Amazon.
• Your favorite genres are serious literary fiction (66%), mysteries / thrillers (65%), historical fiction (64%), and lighter fiction (56%).
• 90% (WOW!) of you get your best book recommendations from book blogs, followed by social media and friends.
• Most of you (67%) track your reading on Goodreads, followed by 28% in a paper journal and 20% in a spreadsheet (if you’re one of these readers, check out my “Rock Your Reading” Tracker!). Personally, I use Goodreads and the “Rock Your Reading” Tracker (because it gives you way more stats than Goodreads does).

Favorite Books You Read in 2017

The Heart’s Invisible Furies	14
Little Fires Everywhere	12
Beartown	11
This Is How It Always Is	8
A Gentleman in Moscow Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Pachinko	6
The Alice Network Dear Fahrenheit 451 Best Day Ever Homegoing	4

I’m not surprised by the first four, as I loved them all and three of them made my Best Books of 2017 list. Given you like to read this blog, it’s not surprising we have similar taste!

Then, it gets interesting. I didn’t particularly like A Gentleman in Moscow (my review) or Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (my review) and wrote contrarian reviews of both. We can’t agree on everything and that’s what makes talking books so much fun!

Least Favorite Books You Read in 2017

Idaho	4
Never Let Me Go Lincoln in the Bardo A Gentleman in Moscow Final Girls	3
Little Fires Everywhere Exit West My Absolute Darling Sing, Unburied, Sing White Fur Behind Her Eyes The Woman in Cabin 10 A Man Called Ove	2

There are a number of critical darlings / award winners on this list (Idaho, Never Let Me Go, Lincoln in the Bardo, Sing, Unburied, Sing, Exit West). I also didn’t like some of these. Interestingly, Little Fires Everywhere (my review) popped up on both lists! For more about my issues with critical darlings last year, check out my post on the Best Books of 2017 Lists I Agree With…and the Ones I Don’t.

And, many of you mentioned DNFing books you weren’t enjoying, which I’m a huge fan of! Why waste time reading a book you don’t like?! We’re not in school anymore, after all.

Your Biggest Reading Problems

• Time (40)
  Me too…no matter how much time I get to read, I always want more! And, I’m not surprised you feel the same. I did write a post about how to fit in more reading time and one about types of books that work well when you’re super busy. Cheers to hoping we all get more reading time!
• Finding the Right Books for Your Taste (22)
  I struggle with this one too! It’s hard to get a good sense of your reading taste, but also remain open to new types of books. I’ve recently been focusing less on the book selections themselves and more on who the recommendation comes from (my “Rock Your Reading Tracker” is helping me keep track of my best recommendation sources!) and it’s helping!
• Finding People to Talk Books With (21)
  This is one of my favorite things about blogging about books. And, I’m working on creating a Facebook Group for Sarah’s Book Shelves readers to talk books with each other in a more informal setting! The Facebook Group will be open to all Patreon supporters (coming later this year) and anyone who participated in the Free Trial of my Personalized Book Recommendations service last Spring.
• Avoiding getting distracted by social media/phone/TV (10)
  A sign of the times, right? I’ve heard of people setting their phone’s timer to help them read for certain periods of time. The Offtime app filters and blocks distracting communications. Personally, I don’t use social media notifications…and I sometimes put my phone on airplane mode.

Your Questions and Feedback

Thank you for the many great questions and comments you had for me! I had originally planned to answer them in this post, but it got to be too dang long. 

Don’t worry, I’ll respond to all your questions and comments in a separate post tomorrow!

What do you think about all these awesome blog readers? Are you surprised by anything?