Friday, March 02, 2007

Walking in my (worn out) shoes: the 2006 stats!

Another year, another long journey to the Needles. Like last year, I kept a running list of statistics from the beginning of the 2006 literary year (March to March).

What does it take to find 15 excellent self-published titles?

The answer: More work than it took to find fifty.

The sob story:

Total number of queries received: 5,267
Total number of books considered: 1,666
Total number of books read to completion but did not get reviewed (the ones that came "this close"): 41

Total number of books submitted to me via email: 1,651

Total number of books not read past first page: 217
Total number of books not read past first paragraph: 23
Total number of books not read past first sentence: 8

Total number of books I read in one sitting, despite hunger, daybreak, and bathroom needs: 5

Total number of times I was harassed for not reviewing a submitted novel: 8
Most times a single author submitted a single book: 6

Total number of times an author asked me to purchase his or her book to garner a review: 6

Total number of POD books (that I had purchased) donated to local libraries: 14
Total number of POD books (that I had purchased) rejected from local libraries: 1

Total dollar amount spent on this venture: $0.00 (I do not count books purchased since I own them.)
Total dollar amount made on this venture: $0.00 (still)

Total number of emails received, since March 2005, (non-spam) to
girlondemand@yahoo.com: 173,366
Total number of gigabytes worth of data I received, since March 2005, in PDF files: @ 8.15 GB

Total number of unique hits to this blog for March 2006 - March 2007: 1,235,222

Number of selected/reviewed books by publisher:

Lulu: 5
iUniverse: 5
Velluminous: 2
Authorhouse: 1
Toadspittle Hill Productions: 1
Sunspot Press: 1

Total number of commercially published authors who got in contact to applaud this effort: 26

Total number of commercially published authors who got in contact to ask me to review their novels: 12

Total number of agents who requested to see the Needle awards data: 28

Total number of editors who requested to see the Needle awards data: 19

Total number of agents and editors who asked if they could be judges next year: 7 (As one agent put it, "Of course--we all want to get first dibs on reading these books!)

Total number of offers to buy my book if I would just surrender my identity: I stopped counting once I hit 1,000.

Here's hoping you enjoyed this year as much as I did!