Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Another year, another spreadsheet...

Santa Iain came early this year... the spreadsheet is ready, 4 days ahead of time (I think)...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

As with years past, I leave coloring to you guys, but if you have column/formula/etc requests, send them here and I'll accommodate, as best I can, in the coming weeks...

Old sheets for inspiration:

2023: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
2022: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
2021: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
2020: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
2019: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

There are a bunch of first-timers this year. There's a primer page with a bit of a tutorial about the features of the sheet. Find your tab (alphabetized by team and player), and bookmark it for use throughout the year. The sheet takes care of all the solo and team math, and creates some nice statistics on the first couple pages. The sheet can be safely used all the way to December 31st 2024, without messing up the competition rankings, which ends at Halloween.

Also, you can pre-input all your books and Buddy Reads... points won't be calculated and added to the top section and group/competition, until you input the date you finished reading the book, in column D/E on most sheets (that didn't add a bunch of extra columns)...

Have Fun!!!

Ahh same as last years. Perfect! Thanks Iain :)

If anyone finds any errors/bugs, mention them here as well...

Reminder: there will be a fair amount of #DIV/0 errors (divide by zero) and red corner triangles indicating issues, especially on the bar graphs, until January 1st, and people input their first book... things will smooth out then, for most things...

The main issues to watch for are #REF (broken references), and when points totals don't change or seem wrong, when you input a book...

Narilka wrote: "Ahh same as last years. Perfect! Thanks Iain :)"

Base, I just make a copy of last year, and delete all the book data... then I compare the participants and delete people that bowed out... then I check new players, and make them sheets matching their group color, using duplicate sheet options...

Then I edit group data for each player in the Participant Data page, then I recolor the tabs (not the sheets, just the tabs) based on team, then resort the tabs based on team alphabetically, then I sort range of the players in the Participant Data tab, edit the competition year to the new year (2023 to 2024) for the estimated points by Halloween formula, do a couple more housekeeping things, and share it with the world...

All in all, took me about 2 hours, this year... don't really have any big feature plans/updates, unlike last year, when I implemented the November/December row and formula changes sheet-wide, for easy future-proofing...

Then I make ANOTHER copy of the sheet, post-changes, as a backup, in case something crazy happens, and we're good for the year...

I usually end up making a new copy around November, instead of using the January/December copy for next year, otherwise any changes/fixes wouldn't carry over (usually broken row formulas that creep in from people adding rows/columns)...

Yay, thanks Iain!

Thanks Iain!!! I just put all missing In Death series on mine LOL! Planning finish it next year :) Have a lots more to add there, but... bit by bit :)

Monika wrote: "Thanks Iain!!! I just put all missing In Death series on mine LOL! Planning finish it next year :) Have a lots more to add there, but... bit by bit :)"

Totally understand :D

I secretly created the spreadsheet, in a very muddy state, like 2 months ago, to start tracking my 2024 Buddy Reads, when we were in a frenzy in the BR Invite thread... did all the work making it shareable today, tho...

I've probably got a couple dozen BRs to add to my sheet still, as well...

Thanks Iain! Also love reading about all the backwork you put into the whole thing, a work of art.

Thanks Iain!!

It's nice to have a list of all the old spreadsheets to see the previous team and individual stats.

Yea... also nice to see basically every team has had a chance to win...

Timelord Iain wrote: "Yea... also nice to see basically every team has had a chance to win..."

Somehow my team placement skills worked out over the years. With your fancy spreadsheet, you'd probably be horrified to see how I arrange the teams lol

Wow, this spreadsheet is a masterpiece! Me and my BFF are excel nerds. I may have to show this to her so we can geek out. Looking forward to looking at this on a computer instead of my phone.

Thanks a bunch Iain!! I totally snooped on the 2023 spreadsheet often this year so I look forward to snooping in on everyone's progress next year while I'm updating!!🤣

Felina wrote: "Wow, this spreadsheet is a masterpiece! Me and my BFF are excel nerds. I may have to show this to her so we can geek out. Looking forward to looking at this on a computer instead of my phone."

Like I told Nyssa in the Horns of Hammerad thread, it was a real team effort over multiple years...

Me, Rob, and Virginie revamped and streamlined all the ideas from scratch in 2019/2020, into what you see today, which is a nice package of data collecting and dispersal, with lots of nice bells and whistles, and room for requests...

I was gonna say to be careful, because someone accidentally deleted a cell on the Main Page, and then tried to fix it... or was pranking?... but it's actually a protected page, so I think the only people that could have done it are Jenna or Rob (or Annika or Virginie, but they haven't been around much in years, so I doubt it's them)...

I fixed it... it wasn't a simple data input, but a formula... I probably wouldn't have noticed for a bit, if they/you hadn't forgotten the s on Tome RaiderS, and failed the conditional formatting the recolors the tab to the team colors, so it was defaulting to a boring gray...

I tried coloring all of my cells purple. I'm not sure if that messed anything up though...

First I tried doing it through the "theme color" option on View, and it gave me an "error" message... then I just went with the "fill color" button and that didn't give me any errors, but some cells won't change their stripes.

I think I did a woopsie almighty spreadsheet master. I added a column and thought the points were okay, but looks like it messed something up somewhere with the totals 😅

Tonari no Emily wrote: "I think I did a woopsie almighty spreadsheet master. I added a column and thought the points were okay, but looks like it messed something up somewhere with the totals 😅"

Yea... all column additions before the point column need to be mentioned to me, generally... need to merge stuff at the top, and/or adjust data grabbing in the Participant Data tab

Jenna wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "Yea... also nice to see basically every team has had a chance to win..."

Somehow my team placement skills worked out over the years. With your fancy spreadsheet, you'd probab..."

Tonari no Emily wrote: "I think I did a woopsie almighty spreadsheet master. I added a column and thought the points were okay, but looks like it messed something up somewhere with the totals 😅"

All sorted on the Participant Data page...

Merged some cells on your page at the top to label Total Books... you can do whatever with your new column and the blank cell at the top now, and it should be safe...

I feel like we need a general Ask Iain Excel Magic Q&A thread....

Timelord Iain wrote: "Tonari no Emily wrote: "I think I did a woopsie almighty spreadsheet master. I added a column and thought the points were okay, but looks like it messed something up somewhere with the totals 😅"

A..."

Thanks! I didn't notice it yesterday else I would have just did undo and ask you to add for me lol

Nirkatze wrote: "I tried coloring all of my cells purple. I'm not sure if that messed anything up though...

First I tried doing it through the "theme color" option on View, and it gave me an "error" message... the..."

I was able to color your book tracking section with Alternating Colors pretty easy, in a few clicks...

The points total column looks on color already, maybe?

To recolor the Buddy Read / Challenge / etc section, you need to fiddle with Conditional Formatting... that controls the color over there when the points are 0, so the text matches the background and is invisible...

EDIT: I made the color changes...

I used a pastel color for your book data row section... the idea there is to alternate colors so it's easy to read a long row without issue, but you need a pale enough color that it doesn't obscure the text font...

Nirkatze wrote: "I feel like we need a general Ask Iain Excel Magic Q&A thread...."

That's basically what this thread is...

Sometimes I explain how I solved some obscure problem that troubled me for 30 minutes... usually with alot of google search magic... the basic way of learning anything programming related... have a project, and learn solutions to your problems...

The hardest part is parsing some of the Google Sheet error messages, when you have too many commas in your formula...

Thank you Iain! Looking forward to starting with the new thread... just gotta wrap up these last December BRs...

Timelord Iain wrote: "I was gonna say to be careful, because someone accidentally deleted a cell on the Main Page, and then tried to fix it... or was pranking?... but it's actually a protected page, so I think the only ..."

With those suspects, I am going to assume I accidentally did something and didn't notice -- sorry about that Iain, I hope it didn't take too long to fix :(

Ann-Marie wrote: "Jenna wrote: "Somehow my team placement skills worked out over the years. With your fancy spreadsheet..."

Lol did you sneak into my house and film me to get this? Too accurate haha

Jenna wrote: "Ann-Marie wrote: "Jenna wrote: "Somehow my team placement skills worked out over the years. With your fancy spreadsheet..."

Lol did you sneak into my house and film me to get this? Too accurate haha"

maybe....

Couple of questions now that I've spent some time with the spreadsheet.

1. I noticed some people have more columns than the standard. How do I get more columns?

2. There is a column for 'challenge?'. What does that mean? Is there a challenge outside of this grand challenge/competition that I'm not aware of?

Felina wrote: "Couple of questions now that I've spent some time with the spreadsheet.

1. I noticed some people have more columns than the standard. How do I get more columns?

2. There is a column for 'challen..."

I believe you can ask Iain to add columns and you get extra credit if a book fits one of the other challenges that is in progress in the group.

Speaking of which, Iain, can you please add the column of check boxes for reviews for me when you get a chance? I want to be more conscientious of this next year. Also just to be sure before I start adding books, if the Date Read is out of sequence it will still work as intended? I try to have stuff planned out but yeah, sometimes I have to move stuff around on my tracking and that is a pain, this sheet gives me agita and I want to change as little as possible lol

Ann-Marie wrote: "I believe you can ask Iain to add columns and you get extra credit if a book fits one of the other challenges that is in progress in the group.
"

Yes @Felina, this is correct :) I won't speak for the spreadsheet, you'll have to ask Iain. But I can explain a bit about the challenges.

If you set up your own thread for one (or more) of the other challenges happening in the group, you can get bonus points! There have been a number of challenges posted over the years, and you can pick any of them you like and adjust them to fit your needs. We're pretty flexible on challenge rules. Here are some of the challenges we have. You can read the "How it Works" threads and also check out how some of the members set up their individual threads.

Monthly Reading Challenge
A-Z Topic Challenge
Bingo Challenge
Book Cover Challenge
Set Your Own Challenge
Incomplete Series Challenge
Overflowing Bookshelf Challenge
TBReviewed Challenge
Settlement Portal Challenge (this last one is still being set up, but you can go comment on the thread to express your interest)

Then if you read any of the books that were a part of a challenge you set up, you can count it towards the bonus for the team competition. :)

Hi Iain!! Quick question, is there an easy way for me to create a filter? I like inputting in books out of order at times, but love for the entries to be sorted by date read. 🤣I also would like to freeze the book title column for when I'm scrolling right, but wasn't sure how I could with the merged cells. Totally understand if that messes up things though. I did add BR Thread & Notes columns at the end of the sheet and hope that didn't break anything too.

Thanks for any help!!

Thanks Iain!!!! You rock

O great and mighty spreadsheet master, I humbly approach you with a request.

Hi Iain, if you have time (no rush or anything), could I get the genre tracker like Melissa has on her 2023 sheet? And instead of putting it over the Monthly Progress chart, could it cover the top Monthly summary from GN -> Rating /5* (and also hide the monthly summary of genres in this)?

I don't know if you need a list of the specific genres I'm planning to track, so I'll include that as well: fantasy, science fiction, horror, contemporary fiction, historical fiction, mystery/thriller, classics, poetry, nonfiction.

Thank you so much in advance!!

All the requests should be doable... just might be a day or 2 before I get to them... after 2 days of spreadsheet fiddling 24/7, I need to recoup my batteries a bit...

Felina wrote: "Couple of questions now that I've spent some time with the spreadsheet.

1. I noticed some people have more columns than the standard. How do I get more columns?

2. There is a column for 'challen..."

The Incomplete Series challenge is definitely the easiest challenge to earn bonus points from... covers most anything except standalones...

Thanks!!! This is fun. I’m going to go check out the challenges. I have been doing my own personal ‘finish that series’ challenge so I might as well move it her and get credit for it.

I’ll look at the different tabs and see what others are doing and let Iain know which one I like best. So far it’s his. Ha ha.

I also probably won’t read my books in order because I’m on the whim of when library books become available.

You can drag and rearrange rows to put your books in order, or highlight the book data section of your sheet and sort by date read, to keep your books in order without breaking formulas... just don't mess with the top section or the points on the right, really... that stuff needs to stay where it's at, and can recalculate, after your book data rearranges...

Felina wrote: "Thanks!!! This is fun. I’m going to go check out the challenges. I have been doing my own personal ‘finish that series’ challenge so I might as well move it her and get credit for it.

I’ll look a..."

If you want a big change like going to mine, I'll just make a duplicate of my sheet and replace your sheet with it... it's the easiest way to do things like that... just need to change the GID link in participant data... my sheet is probably the most formula-heavy sheet in the group, since Virginie left... Like like having that extra layer of monthly data about my audiobook habits and ratings...

Thanks, Iain, for your hard work :)

I’m not super familiar with Google docs but I’m not bad with excel. It sounds like it’s pretty similar so the sorting won’t be a problem for me. I already had to do some format adjusting for a rogue alignment. I promised myself I would do my audiobook for another couple hours before I can go play with the spreadsheet and the challenges. I have this problem where I almost enjoy planning what to read and when more than actually reading.

That's a bit of a stretch, for me, but I definitely plan like 200 books, and then join 100 more when i run out of scheduled books, based on what's on the schedule each month... my version of mood reading, I guess... 410 of my 515 books this year were Buddy Reads... mostly accounted for in those 2 methods above, then random reads in the Vagabond thread turning into Buddy Reads when other join me on a whim... and then add in 2-4 books a month in the Mystery Book Club thread... a few dozen were also short stories within a larger series Buddy Read, so that shrinks it a bit...

Beyond a certain point, scheduling too much too far ahead is just asking for trouble... best to leave some wiggle room...

Hey Iain, hopefully not too difficult an ask. Since you mentioned changing participants' names, could you change mine to Mel to match?

Thanks so much Timelord!! I've gotta sign up for the new challenge!! When you have the time (and I get assigned a team) could you match my sheet to the format of 2023!! Thanks in advance!! You're a spread sheet wizard!

I changed Mel's name and added Ann-Marie's checkbox column...

Jenna's gonna be more work...

I dunno which sheet Felina wants yet?

Waiting to add Kate & Nyssa until they're officially added to the competition...

Felina doesn’t know quite yet. I got booted off the computer this morning so minecrafting could happen. I haven’t had a chance to seriously peruse. That will happen this evening.

Timelord Iain wrote: " added Ann-Marie's checkbox column...."

thanks!

Okay, yeah, I want mine to be like yours, Iain. I like how you have separating sections for the months that can collapse. I also like the check boxes, the series number and the source name.

Woot! Spreadsheets are fun.

Felina wrote: "Okay, yeah, I want mine to be like yours, Iain. I like how you have separating sections for the months that can collapse. I also like the check boxes, the series number and the source name.

Woot! ..."

I seem to be Dittoing Felina a lot this morning!

So, I am also requesting the above. If there is anything that makes tracking series easier, that would be for me (please), And if we get to choose colors - blues & greens are my favorite.

Please & Thank you!