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The GoodReads Yearly Challenge
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Clare
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Jan 01, 2016 05:52AM
I enjoy reading just as much as listening audiobooks. Last year i had a bad bout of depression and i can honestly say reading and my audiobooks were lifesavers for me. My first Goodreads challenge was in 2015, i originally hoped to read 60 books. However life got in the way and i reluctantly amended it to 50. By the end of 2015 I had read 55 books, which i was quite pleased about. This year I have been conservative and hope to read 52 books.
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I just went to check my challenge stats and it seems 5 people have already completed their 2016 challenges! That seems to be aiming a little low of you manage to complete it in the first 8 hours of the year...lol.This will be my 4th year of the challenge. Last year I aimed for 100 and had that by about 8 months, so I upped it to 125. I finished with 142.
This year I've set it for 100 again.
I don't really care if I reach it or not, I like seeing the stats and keeping track when I visit GRs.
I think I'd read the same amount challenge or not, it's just a fun little participation thing for me.
I've been doing the challenges since 2012, it's really fun to set a high number and push myself to find the time to read or listen to a book. My goal this year is higher than 2015 but lower than what I was doing when I first started simply because I've got a 1 year old at home now and she feels I should just be reading her books...5x...a day. I'm not counting those books this year to try to really push myself. These are 75 books for me this time!Going to be leaning heavily on audiobooks again this year which I can enjoy commuting to work or even while working.
This is the sixth year of the challenge for me and I'm going to keep my goal at 100. I put away a lot of mysteries this year, picked up from sales and daily deals, that were easy and quick listens/reads. So 100 is a challenge especially if I change the balance of what I'm reading. I've been reading Alaska by Michener f.o.r.e.v.e.r. I'm really enjoying it but it puts a cramp in the challenge.
Julie wrote: "Oh Fran You have one of the cool pages with all the challenges down the side ! That looks so neat !
Does anyone know if 2011 was the first year they did them in here ?"
Don't all Goodreads pages look the same?
I've been doing the challenge every year since 2013, so this will be my 4th year. It's just kind of fun to monitor my progress. I don't get too stressed out about the goal itself, but I have exceeded my goal every year. Last year my goal was 90, and I read 100 books. This year I'm planning to scale back on my audiobook reading, so I set my goal at 75 to make more room for podcasts, etc. We'll see how it goes.
Patricia wrote: " it seems 5 people have already completed their 2016 challenges! That seems to be aiming a little low of you manage to complete it in the first 8 hours of the year...lol."Ha ha, now that's pretty funny. :)
This will be my third year of participating in the reading challenge. In 2014 my goal was 15 books, which at the time was a big goal for me given that I'm a slow reader and I typically choose pretty chunky books. But I surpassed that and so in 2015 my goal was double at 30 books. I surpassed that as well, so for 2016 my goal is double again at 60 books. I hope to be able to accomplish that, and starting to listen to audio books this year will help in reaching that goal. I seriously doubt I will double that goal for 2017, though. :)
According to the 2015 challenge stats, only 21,337 Mage their challenge out of 1,700.000 participants. I am shocked at that low a number. It's one tenth of one percent. Does the 1.7 million represent ALL Goodreads users or only those that set a goal? Wonder how many active (users who updated goodreads in the last year) there are?
When did Goodreads start the challenges? I started GR in 2009, but the first year I did the challenge was 2011 and have done it each year since. I started out the first year really low and kept increasing my goal throughout the year. Each year since then, I've set higher goals and surpassed them. I no longer adjust my figures during the year. Last year, I put down 100 and read 136 so this year, I set my goal at 120.
Shane wrote: "According to the 2015 challenge stats, only 21,337 Mage their challenge out of 1,700.000 participants. I am shocked at that low a number. It's one tenth of one percent. Does the 1.7 million represent ALL Goodreads users or only those that set a goal? Wonder how many active (users who updated goodreads in the last year) there are? "
A few years ago, when GR was sold to AMZN, I believe the subscriber base was 5 or 6 million; so unless 3+ million bailed since then, I suspect the the 1.7m represent those who set a goal. I think many, in the exuberance of the New Year, set their goals, and as the year wears on, resolutions fade...
A few years ago, when GR was sold to AMZN, I believe the subscriber base was 5 or 6 million; so unless 3+ million bailed since then, I suspect the the 1.7m represent those who set a goal. I think many, in the exuberance of the New Year, set their goals, and as the year wears on, resolutions fade...
I think 2011 might have been the first year GR set up the Yearly Reading goals. I participated then and the next year; and then left GR for another 2 years. I've returned and am participating again; but since your past history is deleted when/if you leave, my sidebar will not reflect those earlier years.
I set my goal at 150 titles. That's the average I've hit for the past few years, so I think I've hit my saturation point in terms of reading speed and time available.
I set my goal at 150 titles. That's the average I've hit for the past few years, so I think I've hit my saturation point in terms of reading speed and time available.
I've been doing the challenges since 2012, and I've managed to make my goal every year. I'm going to keep my goal at 275 books for 2016, and I've been thinking about what subsidiary goals I want to set for myself. We have to move a very large bookshelf area in the next week (for new flooring), and I've already started tidying the shelves and culling books. But it's difficult not to stop and dive into the hidden treasures I keep finding, lol.
I think this will be my third year. I am maintaining my current goal of 30 books for the year. That will be mostly audiobooks, and I only get to listen for short periods, so that's a realistic goal. I did 36 books last year - all on audio - but some of those were very short.
I did 200 last year but I had to bump up my numbers as I read 59 HP Lovecraft short stories. They went quickly.
Nicole wrote: "I've been doing the challenges since 2012, it's really fun to set a high number and push myself to find the time to read or listen to a book. My goal this year is higher than 2015 but lower than wh..."I have also been doing it since 2012. I found in 2015 that I was getting stressed out by seeing it tell me I was behind so this year I set my goal quite a bit lower. I can always change it later!
I'd love to know the reasons people have for taking up a challenge. I really can't understand the attraction. Not criticising, just curious
Incentive to keep track and watch them list stack up. Plus I always hope it will help me to remember to make time for myself....
I didn't join GR until November 2014 I think so 2015 was my first year to do the challenge. I started with a goal of 52 books but was so far ahead by June I upped it to 74. I finally finished with 99 books read.This year I set my goal for 100. We'll see how tat work out since this year I am going more for quality than quantity.
I did my first challenge in 2011 - although there was a group I was in that was doing something similar years before.I used to not watch TV at all so in 2011 I said I would do 365 and ended up reading/listening to 472. This includes short stories, audiobooks, ebooks, paper books.
I didn't meet my goals in 2012 and 2013 and 2014 was a scramble. So in 2015 I set 200 books as my goal and went slightly over that. I'm doing the same number this year.
I started in 2011 and set a record a bit high for myself that year, 90 books. I completed the goal in 2014, but not last year's so I scaled it down to 60 this year. I know I am at least getting 2 audiobooks a month in so I'm hoping to do more reading. TV, life, games, reading slump etc get in the way so we will see.I like doing the challenge b/c it challenges me to read more. I remember being young and go to the library in the summer and get a stack of 10 or 15 books to read every two weeks, wish I had that carefree time to read again, but it's my love of reading that pushes me.
Signed up for fewer challenges this year, not doing a cozy challenge-although I'll still read them even started the year off with one.
According to my profile, I've done it for 5 years but for some reason 2014 doesn't show up. When I started,I had been reading about 40-50 books a year, so I picked 60 as a goal and read 75. The last few years I have attained 100, with about half audio. I am hampered by working full time, so I look forward to retiring in a few years!
Doesn't the "scramble" as Carolyn puts it to meet your goal take away the enjoyment?
I started to participate in the challenge in 2011, and read average of 150 books a year. I am going too keep the challenge at the same number, but try to read more print books that are not available in audio. Hopefully this will help with cleaning my to read shelf a bit.
Robin wrote: "According to my profile, I've done it for 5 years but for some reason 2014 doesn't show up. When I started,I had been reading about 40-50 books a year, so I picked 60 as a goal and read 75. The las..."The ones I didn't meet, don't show up.
Bec/ Audiothing wrote: "Doesn't the "scramble" as Carolyn puts it to meet your goal take away the enjoyment?"It was not enjoyable Bec. I was reading a ton of short stories just to meet the #.
Why does everyone treat short stories as second class or trivial? That has come up in several groups. I had enjoyed many short stories. The fact that a few can be read in a day does not take away from the work of the writer. Myself I read many HP Lovecraft short stories last year and I found them very interesting. I did adjust my goal accordingly to keep it a challenge. Everyone should adjust their goal regularly to keep it a challenge but not discouraging.
I joined in 2010 and started participating in the challenge in 2013. I lowered my goal to 50 and this year I was at exactly 100. I enjoy participating in this challenge as I don't have to do a lot, GR keeps track of it for me.
I guess I mention them because someone on Goodreads told me it wasn't possible that I read that many books in a year and that I must have skimmed them. I justified the number by saying some were short stories. I love short stories (not too short though - one was 5 pages - that just felt like an idea). I read a lot of anthologies and there are a lot of great short stories in them. too. Sometimes I'll find authors that end up being my favorite from reading their short stories.
I usually do the challenge set on another forum I'm a member of, based on the year..so last year it was 215..this year it will be 216, and that was the reason I found and joined Goodreads to keep track.However, life has got more than a little hetic and I only managed a 100..so that's my target for this yearand hopefully now things are settling down a little I'll beat it
I enjoy the challenge, this will be my 6th year of participating. I enjoy seeing where I am at and it was fun when I met my goals. Actually the two years I met them, I read more than my target number. 2015 I was short by 5 books due to a death in the family but I am sticking with 85 as my goal again in 2016.
This is my third year doing the reading challenge. In 2014 I started with 20 books because I had only just returned to reading but upped the number throughout the year to a final 40. Last year I started out with 30 but then increased it again thinking I needed a real challenge, and I just barely managed 50. So this year I want to stay realistic and read 40 books. Depending on how many books appeal to me, that could change, though.
This will be my 4th year. I just kind of pick a random realistic goal. It can be hard to jidge my progress as the first 4 months are my heavy reading months so I really need to be about half way by May. If I get close to the goal prior to December I just bump it up a little higher.
Also I tried to put my goal at 19435 and goodreads said goals must be no higher than 5000 a year. In case you were all curious
Another thought. I like to look at page numbers I think they tell more than book numbers.
Shane wrote: "Why does everyone treat short stories as second class or trivial? That has come up in several groups. I had enjoyed many short stories. The fact that a few can be read in a day does not take away f..."If it's an anthology of short stories, I don't treat it any differently from any other book.
If it's just a short story, I shelve it on an exclusive shelf called "Shorts under 100", and I don't mark the finish date. For some reason, if I filled in a finish date it was added to my challenge and I don't want it on the challenge. Generally I finish it in one day anyway, so leaving the finished date is no big deal.
Janice wrote: "Shane wrote: "Why does everyone treat short stories as second class or trivial? That has come up in several groups. I had enjoyed many short stories. The fact that a few can be read in a day does n..."You kinda of back my point. you are treating them differently because you finished in 1 day. When I listened to two Womens Murder Club books in one day (5hrs each), should I not count them? To me if Goodreads counts it as a book, then I will mark it accordingly.
Also, why do you not mark the finished? That messes with your overall "stats" for reading each year. I know many have shelves for book counts of read each year but goodreads "stats" show that but if you do not put the finish date then they won't show up. When I read the 50 HP Lovecraft short stories last year, I just increased my challenge by the same amount to compensate.
Shane, I'm like you. I treat them as a book if GR does. I've always thought short stories were one of the finest forms of writing. I grew up being awed by SF short stories & often get more out of them than entire novels.According to My Year in Books 2015
https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_i...
my average page count was 271 pages, a respectable novel length. Considering 60% of my reading was audio books, that seems rather high, but I don't pay any attention to page counts anyway.
To me, the numbers of books & pages are fairly meaningless in the grand scheme. It's the quality of the writing & my enjoyment of it that is the mark to shoot for. My goals are to see my star ratings go up since that means I'm enjoying what I read more.
Here are my star averages for the past 7 years & they seem to be going down.
2009| 2010| 2011| 2012| 2013| 2014| 2015
3.39 | 3.44 | 3.49 | 3.50 | 3.40 | 3.26 | 3.25
I think that's because I'm a bit more choosy in handing out 5 stars as the numbers of books over 3 stars is going up & I feel as if I'm reading better books each year.
____ _|__ 3 Star__|__ 4 Star_|__5 Star_|_Total
2009 _|___ 59 ___|__ 52 ___|__ 16 ___|__ 127
2010 _|___ 47 ___|__ 50 ___|__ 9 ___|__ 106
2011 _|___ 43 ___|__ 55 ___|__ 13 ___|__ 111
2012 _|___ 40 ___|__ 50 ___|__ 22 ___|__ 112
2013 _|___ 67 ___|__ 78 ___|__ 33 ___|__ 178
2014 _|___ 71 ___|__ 74 ___|__ 24 ___|__ 169
2015 _|___ 73 ___|__ 96 ___|__ 22 ___|__ 191
Travis of NNY wrote: "Another thought. I like to look at page numbers I think they tell more than book numbers."I like page numbers also! A person can read a couple of bricks that equal 4 to 6 shorter books.
Fran wrote: "Travis of NNY wrote: "Another thought. I like to look at page numbers I think they tell more than book numbers."I like page numbers also! A person can read a couple of bricks that equal 4 to 6 sh..."
The issue with page numbers is that depends on the edition. I do 90% audiobooks. Goodread Librarians are taught that audiobook "page" is the rounded up number of hours since there is no "duration/hours" field. Therefore the latest book I read would have 5 pages if I choose the audiobook but 342 pages if I choose paperback. so I either have to lie and pick paperback or be honest with what I really read but drop my stats.
If I were honest then my 2015 page count would drop from 51,000 pages to an estimated 2,000. for the same number of books.
I posted this issue in the Goodreads Feedback too.
I don't usually pick the audiobook book type when using goodreads I just use the first edition offered. Usually is a hardcover edition
Shane wrote: "You kinda of back my point. you are treating them differently because you finished in 1 day..."No, I treated them differently because I don't consider a short story to be a full novel. You misunderstood me. It has nothing to do with how long it takes me to finish a book. It has everything to do with the definition of Novel, Novella, Short Story.
Jim wrote: "my average page count was 271 pages, a respectable novel length. Considering 60% of my reading was audio books, that seems rather high, but I don't pay any attention to page counts anyway. .."I read something somewhere recently that Goodreads calculated audiobook pages based on either the paperback or hardcover version for the purposes of calculating year end stats beginning with 2015. Prior to that, they used the audiobook version which in many cases read 0 pages. That could be why your stats look higher this year.
Speaking of page counts... When I enter an audiobook on my shelf "to listen to", I add the page number from the hardcover or paperback version (whichever is listed first), and the length of the audiobook to my private notes. I use this information a lot when I'm looking for books to read for a challenge.A notation could look like this:
355 pgs
12:50 hrs
Janice wrote: "I read something somewhere recently that Goodreads calculated audiobook pages based on either the paperback or hardcover version for the purposes of calculating year end stats beginning with 2015. ..."Interesting, although I'm not sure my page counts are higher. I never pay attention to them. It's the star rating I'm mostly interested in. I detest writers that write as if they're paid by the word. I quit reading King years ago because of page long descriptions of common objects. While it sets the mood for some readers, it just bores me.
Janice wrote: "Jim wrote: "my average page count was 271 pages, a respectable novel length. Considering 60% of my reading was audio books, that seems rather high, but I don't pay any attention to page counts anyw..."https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/2...
Shane wrote: "Why does everyone treat short stories as second class or trivial? That has come up in several groups. I had enjoyed many short stories. The fact that a few can be read in a day does not take away f..."Shane,
Good point and I completely agree with you. A book is a book, is a book in my view. If one wants to read all children's books with less then 20 pages each then that's ok and they will get credit for all those pages. I'm just happy people are reading.
I better clarify so no one gets insulted accidentally. I'm not saying short stories are children's books, I read shorts too and count them. I was just making a comparison of sorts.
Shane wrote: "Fran wrote: "Travis of NNY wrote: "Another thought. I like to look at page numbers I think they tell more than book numbers."I like page numbers also! A person can read a couple of bricks that eq..."
Interesting. I choose a hardback edition because that's what I'd have in my hands if would be reading it. The exception would be trade paperbacks, not mass market. It's close enough for me, I don't need to be exact with page numbers.
I've never done an annual challange. I do a few short challanges here and there to keep me motivated and I enjoy group/buddy reads where I get to compare notes and reactions with other readers. I don't want to be tempted to cherry pick easy reads, but it I had to set a target it would probably be 52.
Margo wrote: "I've never done an annual challange. I do a few short challanges here and there to keep me motivated and I enjoy group/buddy reads where I get to compare notes and reactions with other readers. I d..."Why not do it? You already have an idea in mind and you can change the challenge anytime to make it realistic or remove pressure.
Last year, only 21,377 of 1,7 MILLION meet their challenge. That is 0.012% so the only pressure is one that you control.
This is my first year on GoodReads, and I haven't been reading much in a long while. for various reasons. So I'm starting low this year to try and get back into the swing of reading more regularly.
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