2015 Year Long Challenge - Serial Killers

[Mariab]

we can also read a serie along the year and then post it complete in a whole level, and not each book in different levels?

[Peggy]

@Maria: the way I understand it, you would then not get the separate 5 points per book. If you read an 8 book series througout the year and not report the read books in the level you are currently in throughout the year, you will in the end (say you're in level 7 at that point) get 80 points for completing the series, and perhaps 5 for that last book that you started and finished while in level 7.

[Sandra, Moderator]

I understand the same thing, Peggy.

[Marie Claude]

Peggy wrote: "@Maria: the way I understand it, you would then not get the separate 5 points per book. If you read an 8 book series througout the year and not report the read books in the level you are currently ..."

That's why you should report the books as you read them in the level you're at the time to get the 5 points for each. When you finish the series, you get the points for the series and naturally 5 points for each book you've read in that level.

[Peggy]

Yes, exactly :)

[Mariab]

Ok. Thanks. Reporting is better then

[Janice, Moderator]

Mariab wrote: "we can also read a serie along the year and then post it complete in a whole level, and not each book in different levels?"

Start each level as if it was January 1 - any books read or started prior to the start of the level can count towards the completion of the series, but doesn't get any points for the book.

So you may as well take the points as you read them in whatever level you are working on at the time.

[Anne (Booklady)]

Janice, I have to read 9 more before my 1st Kill - you'll get a good long rest from me. =)

[Lori Z]

Holy cow! Did I need this challenge! I finally finished updating my fictfact list. Ready for this? 267 series! Crazy, right? The good news is 55 of them are current and 31 of them only have 2 books in each so they don't count for this. However, that still leaves me with 181 series to finish. Of course, I won't finish all of them but at least I have a lot to choose from, lol.

[Sandra, Moderator]

You have a serious series addiction, Lori!

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Wow Lori!

And cheers Janice. Thought so, but thought better to ask the question. Still no idea what number two question was.

[Anne (Booklady)]

Wow Lori!

[Almeta]

Lori Z wrote: "Holy cow! Did I need this challenge! I finally finished updating my fictfact list. Ready for this? 267 series! Crazy, right? The good news is 55 of them are current and 31 of them only have 2 books..."

That is a lot of series. You did say "series", "not number of books in a series"?

Crazy, you are right!☺

[Janice, Moderator]

People should tell us how many series they have on the go now, and then revisit it at the end of the year to see if we've killed or gained series.

According to FictFact, I have 70 series.
6 are complete (or what they call current)
21 have not been started (own at least the first book)
43 in progress.

[Beth]

Do you guys find FictFact useful? Looks like a lot of work to add stuff and I'm debating whether it is worth it. There is no shortcut to connect with Goodreads lists is there?

[Almeta]

Hard stat to figure out.

I have 144 series listed at FicFact. Not every series I ever started (and not finished) is listed there. So I am just going to say that these are the ones I must have been serious about continuing.

I have 782 books shelved as an unread part of a series. These unfortunately also include ones I will likely never try to complete.

[Cherie]

Beth wrote: "Do you guys find FictFact useful? Looks like a lot of work to add stuff and I'm debating whether it is worth it. There is no shortcut to connect with Goodreads lists is there?"

It is a lot of work, I think. I have spent a lot of time there, but not hardly done. No shortcut that I have found to link with GR. On the other hand, I have discovered some that I did not know that there were more books for. I have been reading Star Trek books for years and years and I have found it really confusing as to how they are listed. I also find that I cannot remember some older books at all (like Nero Wolf titles and Agatha Christi books). The titles do not seem familiar and trying to figure out the story line is not really helpful.

[Cherie]

Almeta wrote: "Lori Z wrote: "Holy cow! Did I need this challenge! I finally finished updating my fictfact list. Ready for this? 267 series! Crazy, right? The good news is 55 of them are current and 31 of them on..."

@ the ones that only had two books. I found this very painful to find out. I bought a bunch of books that are listed as #1 in a series only to find out that there are only 1 or 2 so far and had to remove them from my challenge list. Unfortunately for them, they will now sit on my bookshelf or in my Nook unread - until I get all of the rest done 'cuz they don't count. Hopefully, we can read them for other challenges during the year.

[Lori Z]

Cherie wrote: "Beth wrote: "Do you guys find FictFact useful? Looks like a lot of work to add stuff and I'm debating whether it is worth it. There is no shortcut to connect with Goodreads lists is there?"

It is ..."

I agree Cherie, it is a lot of work, and I've found some inconsistancies with Goodreads data or Fantasticfiction. But I do like having a pretty complete list of my series and I like that they send you an email, I think its each month, with books that were added to series you are following. Of course that just adds to my tbr pile, but oh well.

[Lori Z]

Janice wrote: "People should tell us how many series they have on the go now, and then revisit it at the end of the year to see if we've killed or gained series.

According to FictFact, I have 70 series.
6 are ..."

I like this idea, Janice, I'm going to add my numbers to my thread. Since, these numbers don't include series I want to start, I have a feeling the number will be higher at the end of the year, but it will be interesting to see.

[Lori Z]

Sandra wrote: "You have a serious series addiction, Lori!"

LOL! My name's Lori and I'm a series-aholic.

[Dawn]

Ummm, I'm not sure I should confess to my series stats...

According to FictFact I have:
344 series total;
56 complete
82 abandoned
106 in progress
86 not started yet (this is not a complete list as I don't have them all recorded)
8 complete but future books to be released

[Nancy H]

Lori Z wrote: "Holy cow! Did I need this challenge! I finally finished updating my fictfact list. Ready for this? 267 series! Crazy, right? The good news is 55 of them are current and 31 of them only have 2 books..."

Lori,
You are not alone in your addiction! I just started adding mine to FictFact and am up to 141 series and I have only gotten to the letter H from my author list!! I can't even imagine how many there will be when I am done but it is going to be high.
I do find it helpful, though, because there are series that I thought I was done with that now have more books.....just what we BAs (Book Addicts) need.

[Cherie]

I have ignored the stats up to now. I started doing the lists by authors, but got side tracked by their suggestions. I guess I need to finish updating what I know - then I will post my numbers. ;0)

[Lori Z]

Thanks, Nancy and Dawn! I feel much better now, lol.

Dawn, how do you mark abandoned series on fictfact?

[Canadian Dragon]

The stats sound like a great idea. I will post when I have a little more time

[Peggy]

Beth, it depends on how many series you have. I didn't think it took that much time, and it was fun to do. You can add a whole series with just one click, so no need to look up every single book.

I also made sublists for more organization, and if you think of those before adding series, that doesn't mean more work.

[Peggy]

I'll look up my stats when I'm on a computer :)

[Dawn]

Lori Z wrote: "Dawn, how do you mark abandoned series on fictfact? "

They have unfortunately not made it a part of the program yet but I created a list and put all my abandoned series on it.

All my lists are public if you want to take a peek...

[Lori Z]

Thanks Dawn. I'll check it out.

[Peggy]

My fictfact list

63 in total
5 Completed series
2 Sort of completed series (with unpublished books I'm waiting for)
35 Series to start (about 10 were added since the challenge was announced)
18 Series in progress (7 of which I'm not sure I will ever finish)
2 Abandoned

[Sarah]

I have 117 series - these are either ones I've already started or that I own the 1st in the series for. That's all I included on Fictfact. I dare not include my wishlist books.

[Marie Claude]

Dawn wrote: "They have unfortunately not made it a part of the program yet but I created a list and put all my abandoned series on it."

Good idea! I'll have to head there and do it... I have a lot of series I stopped reading and I only mark the new books as skipped so they don't appear on my liste of "Next books"...

[Sam]

Sarah wrote: "I have 117 series - these are either ones I've already started or that I own the 1st in the series for. That's all I included on Fictfact. I dare not include my wishlist books."

117!! Goodness me Sarah! At least you have plenty to choose from then :-)

[Stephanie]

MY FICTFACT LIST:

Series listed: 49
Completed as of today:5 ( some of them are awaiting a book for 2015)
In progress: 12
To start: 32

Apparently I need to get going on some series reads ;-) I guess I just don't want a good series to end so I take forever to finish them. Hopefully the series challenge will help me with that :-)

[KimeyDiann]

I like this idea.
Here is my FictFact list

164 Series Total
10 Completed
62 in progess
92 series to start

I didn't realize I had that many "in progress" series. But unfortunately for this challenge, quite a few of them are only 2 book series.
I didn't add all of my completed series, mainly just the ones I saw listed as suggestions that I knew I had read already.

[Stephanie]

Just thought of a question for the in death books by JD Robb :-)

I know that the 1/2 books don't count for points but do they have to be read in order to kill the series? If not then, I only have 5 books left to kill that series :-)

Thanks!!

[Cherie]

Stephanie wrote: "Just thought of a question for the in death books by JD Robb :-)

I know that the 1/2 books don't count for points but do they have to be read in order to kill the series? If not then, I only have ..."

Stephanie - are you asking if the five remaining books have to be read on the same level?
If yes, then the answer is no. You can read one in level 1, the next in level 2, the next in level 3, the next in level 4 and then kill off the series in level 5, if you want. Or in any combination. The rule for levels is that you must finish one level with a minimum of 100 points before you start the next. You must kill at least one series on each level.

[Peggy]

I think she's asking whether novellas labeled 1.5 or 2.5 should be read as wel for series completion. That's not necessary, I think they are completely ignored for challenge purposes.

[Stephanie]

Nope, Cherie. I'm wondering if the 1/2 books (there are a few like 12.5, 14.5 for example), have to be read in order for the series to be "killed." They don't count for points though but didn't know if they have to be read at all :-)

[Stephanie]

Thanks Peggy! We must have been typing at the same time, lol!

[Cherie]

Stephanie wrote: "Nope, Cherie. I'm wondering if the 1/2 books (there are a few like 12.5, 14.5 for example), have to be read in order for the series to be "killed." They don't count for points though but didn't kno..."

oh, from what I know - you can just ignore them for the "series killed" purposes. For the challenge - they don't exist. Only WHOLE numbers count for books read or not read.

[Stephanie]

Yayayayayayay!! Thanks, Cherie :-) that makes me super happy :-)

[Cherie]

Stephanie wrote: "Yayayayayayay!! Thanks, Cherie :-) that makes me super happy :-)"

Glad I could help, Stephanie. Thanks for jumping in too, Peggy. Guess I better get back to work. Break time is over.

[Janice, Moderator]

Stephanie wrote: "Just thought of a question for the in death books by JD Robb :-)

I know that the 1/2 books don't count for points but do they have to be read in order to kill the series? If not then, I only have ..."

You can read the books in any order you like. There are some people who think it's akin to sacriledge if you read series books out of order. I'm of the mind that the series that have little connecting them other than the characters can be read in any order. I think there's also series that are a number of stand alone books connected by things that are similar - books like Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome.

[Janice, Moderator]

I should read the rest of the new messages before I respond. You ladies have it covered.

[Janice, Moderator]

Re: FictFact - you can have more than one list? How do you do that? I'm struggling with the editting and management of my series there.

[Dawn]

On your home page (or profile page) on the right top is a box that shows all your lists. At the top is a little blue button called Add List. You can create as many as you want.

[Anne (Booklady)]

Dawn wrote: "On your home page (or profile page) on the right top is a box that shows all your lists. At the top is a little blue button called Add List. You can create as many as you want."

Oh! thanks Dawn!!! I still have series to add.

[Marie Claude]

My fictfact series

275 in total (I'm addicted to series... LOL)
47 Completed series
145 in progress
65 series to start
18 series abandoned

Some of the series have less than 3 books and would not count for the challenge, but I don't know how many... And I know that more than a few of those in progress will move to the abandoned category eventually. I am planning to move as many series from the in progress category as I can :)