Sunday, January 23, 2022

Five New Reviewers


I've added recommendations from four ๐Ÿ‘reviewers and three ๐Ÿ†awards to improve coverage of standalone ๐Ÿ“˜novellas in RSR's monthly and year-to-date lists of short fiction. Prior to this change, the 2021 YTD page had just eight novellas, all from magazines. Now, there are 24 novellas with scores from 2-5.

Recommendations for standalone novellas come from Goodreads.com and three of the big four book industry journals: Publishers' Weekly (PW), Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal.

  1. ๐Ÿ‘R.Goodreads: A novella recommended by 70+% of readers (5★+4★ ≥ 70%, ratings ≥ 200) on Goodreads.com gets a +1. It gets a +2 if 80+% of readers recommend it.
  2. ๐Ÿ‘R.PW: A novella with a ★starred review in Publishers' Weekly gets a +1. About 500 out of 10,000 books reviewed each year at PW earn a starred review. A novella gets a +2 if it makes the annual PW "Best Books" or "Summer Reads" SF/Fantasy/Horror list.
  3. ๐Ÿ‘R.Kirkus: A novella recommended in Kirkus Reviews gets a +1. A ★starred review gets a +2. About 10% of 7,000 books reviewed each year at Kirkus earn a starred review (Washington Post).
  4. ๐Ÿ‘R.LibraryJournal: A novella with a ★starred review in Library Journal gets a +1.

Awards for standalone novellas come from Goodreads, Booklist (the fourth big book industry journal), and the American Library Association.

  1. ๐Ÿ†A.₃Choice: A novella finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror categories gets a +1. A winner gets a +2.
  2. ๐Ÿ†A.₃Booklist: A novella in the Booklist Editors' Choice Adult Books list gets a +2.
  3. ๐Ÿ†A.₃ReadingList: A novella finalist in The Reading List: Best Adult Genre Fiction gets a +1. A winner gets a +2. The Reading List is put together by librarians in the Reading List Council established by the CODES section of RUSA in the American Library Association.

I've also added recommendations from Tangent Online (๐Ÿ‘R.Tangent). Combined with the standalone novella reviewers, each of the 12 magazines followed by RSR now have 3-4 recommendations for their top stories (before stories gain recommendations from award nominations and year's best anthologies).

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