Book Purchasing Stats for 2006
Jan. 16th, 2007 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zanzjan...Because I was curious, and now I'm home to look it up in my book database.
2006
Total books purchased: 88
It seems I was way off-base with my earlier guess of ratios of hardcovers to trades to paperbacks. (Note that I was given some books this past year, including a couple of boxes of book club edition hardcovers. I've counted books that were gifted to me separately. People seem to like to give me books...)
The above also broke down into the following categories (not including gifted books):
2005
Total books purchased: 166
For 2005, the figures were as follows. Note that in 2005 I received a large collection of SF, almost entirely paperbacks, from the non-SF-reading widow of a fan who had died in a car accident.
The above also broke down into the following categories:
I guess what I've learned looking at this is that I'm a lot more likely to buy new over used hardcovers, but more likely to buy used paperbacks (though I note that the number of used paperbacks I bought dipped in 2006, which I would assume has two main causes: 1) I'd suddenly acquired 2000+ paperbacks and thus no longer had to go farther than my house to find a particular book, and 2) many of my used bookstore trips were instigated by my decades-long search for a copy of the -Codex Seraphinianus- [coolest book EVER], which I received as a gift at the end of 2005 from a friend who had no idea I was looking for it, only that it seemed just like the sort of book I'd like.
Also, I would have said that I was much more of an SF reader than Fantasy, but I guess that's a little ambiguous. I've found that I can't read anything that's at all like what I'm writing or it completely screws me up, so I suspect the shift towards more fantasy in 2006 reflects the increased amount of writing (largely SF) that I was doing.
I bought (and read) much fewer books in 2006 than 2005, which I attribute more to life stress than to any sort of financial cause. I suppose it'll be interesting to see what 2007 brings.
Note that none of the above includes non-fiction book purchases, which I don't keep track of.
2006
Total books purchased: 88
It seems I was way off-base with my earlier guess of ratios of hardcovers to trades to paperbacks. (Note that I was given some books this past year, including a couple of boxes of book club edition hardcovers. I've counted books that were gifted to me separately. People seem to like to give me books...)
Format total bought new used rcvd as gift Hardcover 41 38 3 +0 Trade 15 13 2 +6 Paperback 32 15 17 +11 Book Club 0 0 0 +210
The above also broke down into the following categories (not including gifted books):
Type number Genre number Novels 71 SF 50 Anthologies 3 Fantasy 32 Collections 8 Mixed SF/F 4 Other 6 Other 2
2005
Total books purchased: 166
For 2005, the figures were as follows. Note that in 2005 I received a large collection of SF, almost entirely paperbacks, from the non-SF-reading widow of a fan who had died in a car accident.
Format total bought new used rcvd as gift Hardcover 58 50 8 +0 Trade 48 42 6 +1 Paperback 53 16 37 +2122 Book Club 7 1 6 +0
The above also broke down into the following categories:
Type number Genre number Novels 130 SF 77 Anthologies 28 Fantasy 72 Collections 8 Mixed SF/F 5 Other 10 Other 12
I guess what I've learned looking at this is that I'm a lot more likely to buy new over used hardcovers, but more likely to buy used paperbacks (though I note that the number of used paperbacks I bought dipped in 2006, which I would assume has two main causes: 1) I'd suddenly acquired 2000+ paperbacks and thus no longer had to go farther than my house to find a particular book, and 2) many of my used bookstore trips were instigated by my decades-long search for a copy of the -Codex Seraphinianus- [coolest book EVER], which I received as a gift at the end of 2005 from a friend who had no idea I was looking for it, only that it seemed just like the sort of book I'd like.
Also, I would have said that I was much more of an SF reader than Fantasy, but I guess that's a little ambiguous. I've found that I can't read anything that's at all like what I'm writing or it completely screws me up, so I suspect the shift towards more fantasy in 2006 reflects the increased amount of writing (largely SF) that I was doing.
I bought (and read) much fewer books in 2006 than 2005, which I attribute more to life stress than to any sort of financial cause. I suppose it'll be interesting to see what 2007 brings.
Note that none of the above includes non-fiction book purchases, which I don't keep track of.
