Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Please read the rules first and ask for clarifications/questions in this thread. :)

1. The 10-month season starts on January 1 and ends on October 31. The winner will be announced on November (TBA), so make sure to update the spreadsheet by (TBA).

2. Books started in the previous year may be counted if you finish them after January 1st. We trust that you will not take advantage of this and start a bunch of books in December so that you can add them right on January 1st.

3. When adding the page count, you may use any of the top 5 English versions* unless you're actually reading the non-English version. For the same reason, large print editions will also not be allowed. The rationale is there were some 300K-word books counting for less than a third of that size because of the edition posted first by Goodreads. It's imperfect, but there isn't a better way unless we have a word count for every book out there.

*For books listed on Goodreads with only Audio format (no page count available) - 30 pages/hr, or a page every 2 minutes, is the average book narration rate at 1x speed
Example: 8-hour book - 240 pages

4. Point system:

Audio: 1:1
Read: 1.25/1 = 5/4
Graphic 1/4

For example, an audiobook with 300 pages will be worth 3.0 points. A 300-page e/print book will be 3.8 points. A 300-page graphic novel will be 0.8 points.

BR: 1/3 bonus
For Buddy Reads points to count, you can start reading the book one week before the BR start date or join in within 2 weeks after the start date. These bonus points are to encourage discussion, so you may only get the BR bonus if you participate in the discussion, not just simply reading at the same time.

Challenge: 1/10 bonus
For challenge points to count, you can use any challenge that you have a tracker set up in this group.

A spreadsheet to input and track points will be posted after teams are announced.

5. New group members who wish to join need to have a minimum of 100 posts in this group. We want to welcome new people to the competition, but this is to ensure you will not disappear shortly after signing up.

6. For people signing up later than the initial draft, once you are added to the challenge, you may include points starting from the day you signed up for the challenge. If you started a book a few days before signing up for the challenge and are still reading when you sign up, you may also include those books.

Announcements will be posted whenever necessary.

I’ve been thinking we should add a rule to exclude editions that say they’re Large Print editions… sometimes you randomly luck into a book with basically double the pagecount for free… more often when you read as much as I do…

Usually it says it on the line that says Mass Market Paperback or Kindle edition…

Timelord Iain wrote: "I’ve been thinking we should add a rule to exclude editions that say they’re Large Print editions… sometimes you randomly luck into a book with basically double the pagecount for free… more often w..."

Good idea - I will add this to the rules in the first post.

And maybe also exclude Dwarsliggers? It's the same principle as Large Print editions, but printed on thinner paper and only one page.

Would that make the page count higher? Or cut it in half?

Since what would usually be a two-page spread becomes one page..? Not sure how dwarsliggers count pages since I've never read in that format. Haven't seen any of the top 5 editions using this format either.

I had to look it up... sounds like they hurt the page count... altho, yea, doesn't seem to be a common US printing thing to do... the English term is Flipback?...

Yes, I didn't know what the English term for it was. It would make the page count higher, but I don't think there are SciFi - books in that version. I've read a thriller that is 336 pages, but in the Flipback format it's 481 pages.
Maybe it's not something that is frequently in the top 5 editions.
I think it's more a Dutch - thing, when reading in my language. I don't think it exist in other languages. I don't know for sure, but in other challenges in other groups it's part of the rules.

Penguin / Random House tried making a few, but didn't really market them and only made 19 different books... seems like a pretty niche thing in general...

It was created by a publisher that specializes in Bibles & Christian literature, and then was licensed to a few other publishers, trying to make it a more global thing... hasn't really taken off, tho, probably because ebooks/etc provide other ways of creating books that require less than 2 hands to read...

Something that doesn't happen often, but I come across it sometimes. Books that are larger than standard formatting and have two columns per page.
My example is The Weird antyhology. It's 19x23.5cm compared to the standard 14.5x21cm. With the font size, I feel like each page is between 1.5-2X a standard book page (1.70X by my calculation based on a standard novel).

Are there any comment requirements for someone to be able to count something as a Buddy Read? Like, only saying "I'm reading" and "I finished" isn't really BR-worthy, is it? Hard to quantify though. I guess it's honor system?

It's definitely an honor system... we don't have time to be the competition police (and there's no prize other than bragging rights, so we're not interested in policing)...

It's definitely much preferred that you participate in the discussion, at least talk about what/why/how much you liked the story...

I've got a question about this rule:
2. Books started in the previous year may be counted if you finish them after January 1st. We trust that you will not take advantage of this and start a bunch of books in December so that you can add them right on January 1st.

I've got a couple of books (5 or so) that I still need to finish from the year before. Is it only the pages read in 2025 that counts or all the pages?

All pages

Saar The Book owl wrote: "I've got a question about this rule:
2. Books started in the previous year may be counted if you finish them after January 1st. We trust that you will not take advantage of this and start a bunch ..."

All pages count, but the honor system hopes that people are not just reading most of the books in 2024 and waiting until to new year to finish up the last few pages. As long as you read a significant chunk of the book in 2025, it's all good. :)

You know a book is long (looking at you, Sanderson) when you are carrying over 8 1/2 hours of audio to finish and you're trying to decide if that is a "significant chunk".

Chris wrote: "You know a book is long (looking at you, Sanderson) when you are carrying over 8 1/2 hours of audio to finish and you're trying to decide if that is a "significant chunk"."

LOL

I had about 9 to 9.5 hours left of the audio on New Year's Eve, and we didn't finish until yesterday, so I counted it for 2025.

Jenna wrote: "Saar The Book owl wrote: "I've got a question about this rule:
2. Books started in the previous year may be counted if you finish them after January 1st. We trust that you will not take advantage ..."

No worries, I still need to read heaps of every book from last year ;)

Chris wrote: "You know a book is long (looking at you, Sanderson) when you are carrying over 8 1/2 hours of audio to finish and you're trying to decide if that is a "significant chunk"."

Haha I think this was already discussed elsewhere, but since there are a lot of people who will probably be carrying over the Sanderson BR, it's fine to add the points for it ;)

Thanks, Jenna