As many of you probably know, I started tracking my recommendation sources a couple years ago and using that information to pick better books. As often as possible, I’m choosing books that have already been read and recommended by trusted recommendation sources rather than from publishers’ catalogs or various “Most Anticipated” book lists. The key to success is the “already read” part because it provides an opinion beyond “does the premise sound good on paper?” and independent of publishers’ marketing machines.
Each quarter, I’m sharing my reading quality and my best recommendation sources.
My Q2 2020 Reading Quality
- % Successful Books ATTEMPTED (includes DNFs) = 68%
- % Successful Books FINISHED (does not include DNFs) = 84%
My Successful Books Attempted increased from 59% in Q1 2020 to 68%.
My Successful Books Finished also increased from 77% to 84%.
Well…I’m thrilled that my success rates have improved so much since the beginning of the year, even with my distracted mental state over the past few months. I’m almost up to my 2019 numbers, which were excellent!
How I Calculate My Best Book Recommendation Sources
- Each quarter, I’ll share my best recommendation sources for the entire year to date, rather than just that quarter. That way, I can see who’s moving up and down as the year progresses. Plus, it might be fun for y’all to watch!
- I picked the top 5 recommendation sources by # of successful recommendations.
- Then, I sorted them by % of total recommendations that are successful, which factors in unsuccessful recommendations.
The reason I don’t want to use % successful recommendations as my only metric is it could cause sources with 1 successful recommendation (100%) to beat out sources with, for example, 4 successful and 1 unsuccessful recommendation (75%).
My Best Book Recommendation Sources for Q2 2020
- Novel Visits (79%)
11 Successful Recommendations
3 Unsuccessful Recommendations
- Read it Forward (77%)
10 Successful Recommendations
3 Unsuccessful Recommendations
- Annie Jones (70%)
7 Successful Recommendations
3 Unsuccessful Recommendations
- TBR, etc. (100%)
6 Successful Recommendations
0 Unsuccessful Recommendations
- Book of the Month (100%)
6 Successful Recommendations
0 Unsuccessful Recommendations
- Jordys.Book.Club (75%)
6 Successful Recommendations
2 Unsuccessful Recommendations
Key Takeaways
- Annie Jones wasn’t on my Q1 list (which was SHOCKING, as she was my #1 recommendation source last year). I knew she would make her way back on and she did this quarter…into the #3 spot!
- Like Annie Jones, Read it Forward (specifically, their Best Books of the Month lists) wasn’t on my Q1 list despite being one of my top 2019 sources and made its way back into my top sources this quarter in the #2 spot.
- New Additions to my Top 5 (compared to Q1 2020): Read it Forward, Annie Jones, Jordys.Book.Club
- Sources that fell out of my Top 5 from Q1 2020: The Millions, Happiest When Reading, Katie Needs a Bigger Bookshelf.
Who have been your best and worst recommendation sources lately?
How I Keep Track of My Reading Quality and Best Recommendation Sources…and You Can Too!
Are you thinking it takes me hours to calculate my reading quality and keep track of my Best and Worst recommendation sources every month? Well, it totally could, but it doesn’t. I use my “Rock Your Reading” Tracker, which automatically calculates my reading quality for me and helps me easily keep track of my recommendation sources.
If you’re interested in tracking your own reading quality and recommendation sources, you can purchase my tracker for $14.99! Go here for more details or purchase below!
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