Book Selection for Monthly Reads

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon, Not a book hipster!]

Hello!

In an attempt to mix things up a bit, and not keep encountering the same books by the same authors in our Book of the Month polls, we've decided to do things a bit differently here.

We read four genres in the group: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Horror, and YA/MG.

Each month we will read from two of these genres, with the other genres read the following month. We will randomize the genres, so the same genres won't always be paired together.

As an example:

If we randomize and get: Sci-fi, YA/MG, Horror, Fantasy, then on Month 1 we will read Sci-fi & YA/MG, and Month 2 will be Horror and Fantasy.


Now, as to the books themselves:

Mods will select the books for each genre poll and the group will vote on them. This will determine our Books for the Month.


So, that's it.

Each month we will read two books, nominated by the mods, and voted on* by the members.


* Please note, the mods will also be given birthday picks, so some months one genre will not have a vote - but there will always be a vote for at least one genre per month.

[G.L.]

Your dear fabulousness

How does an unknown Indie get himself on your list - as a YA/MG novel pick - without being too douchy or offering cash or doing something that involves immediate and irrevocable defenestration?
I remain your humble servant and duly in awe of your fabulaphilability.

GW

[Becky]

G.L. wrote: "Your dear fabulousness

How does an unknown Indie get himself on your list - as a YA/MG novel pick - without being too douchy or offering cash or doing something that involves immediate and irrevocable defenestration?
I remain your humble servant and duly in awe of your fabulaphilability.

GW "

Your book gets on our "list" by being interesting and well-written. That's it. No amount of sucking-up, bribery, shilling, or advertising will matter in the slightest, except for probably bringing about said defenestration.

Mods select the group reads that go onto the poll, and we choose them based on what we are interested in reading. If your book doesn't interest us, then it doesn't get on a poll.

Members might be interested in reading your book with or without it being selected as a group read - however if it appears that your only reason for being in the group is to advertise for it, that will turn people off. You might want to try interacting with the group in other ways, and that might interest people more than just plugging your book in every possible way.

[G.L.]

All good points well made.

[Claire]

I seem to keep missing the polls. Where are they posted?

[HomeInMyShoes]

^I get a PM monthly titled "May News" or whatever Month is coming up and there are links in there.

[Claire]

Oh! Okay, thank you

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon, Not a book hipster!]

There's been some discussion amongst the mods about changing things up a bit again.

The Horror book doesn't seem to be well attended - by either the mods giving nominations (*ahem*), or by voters/readers. So we're considering doing away with the separate Horror theme - though we may still have a horror-ish book under either Fantasy or Sci-fi as and when the mood strikes us and as it falls within those genres (the thought being that most of the Horror we pick for this group has either fantastical or sci-fi elements anyway).

We've also considered doing away with the MG/YA book, as we have allowed YA books to be nominated under the other genres.

So...

Going forward we might only have a Fantasy and Sci-fi book every month - no more alternating themes/genres - but we will still allow YA and Horror-ish books within those genres as and when they're nominated.


But we wanted to get any thoughts and opinions before we made any decisions...

So feel free to comment.

[Chris , cookie guilt]

We should set aside October for horrorish SF and Fantasy.

Although Becky (Sep) and I (Oct) have been using our birthday mod picks then. Hmmmm. It still works since we wouldn't be picking both picks in those months.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon, Not a book hipster!]

Since we haven't gotten any real feedback one way or the other, we have decided to switch to the Fantasy and Sci-Fi formats.

YA books will still be eligible as nominations for both genres, and horror will sometimes creep in as sub-sets of the SFF umbrellas.

[Nyssa]

I'm just now seeing this discussion about the changes to Fantasy and SciFi as the two main categories, and I agree with the decision 100%.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon, Not a book hipster!]

In response to the survey answers, we've decided to try and change the book selection process.

Starting in September, we are going to alternate, monthly, between Member Nominated polls and Mod Nominated polls. September will be out first Member Nominated poll.

In an attempt to keep nominations from being all over the place, we're going to try to do it by theme/subgenre. I'll be starting 2 threads for people to suggest their ideas for themes/subgenres per genre - i.e. one for Fantasy and one for Sci-fi.

I'm going to limit the suggestions to 20 to start with, because I don't want a list a mile long.

What we're going to do is Randomize the themes from the list we get, and then that'll be the theme for the month and then members can nominate books based on that theme. Once a theme is picked, it will be removed from the randomizer list.

Please only suggest themes/subgenres that you would want to read from. Don't just throw every subgenre out there because they exist...

We're going to do this as a trial basis for now. If it doesn't drum up any additional participation then we might scrap it, since it will mean more work for us... and we are fundamentally lazy people. ;)

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon, Not a book hipster!]

In addition:

* Try to avoid big name authors and popular books. There's no hard and fast rules at this time, but just use your judgement based on how popular a book is.
* No self-pubbed books
* Authors may not nominate their own books