The 2020 Goodreads Rundown
When I set my Goodreads Challenge at the dawn of 2020, I naively did the logical thing: took last year’s pattern and figured I’d nudge myself to “outread” 2019, if only by a little. What I didn’t anticipate? 2020.
Beyond COVID’s quarantines and social distancing and the complete upheaval of how most of us lived our lives, my reading life underwent three massive changes.
One: Beta Reading
At the end of 2019, I dipped my toe in this little thing called “PitMad.” (The “mad” part is not hyperbolic.) I stopped being a lonely little author, writing in my own corner of the world, and became part of an international community. I swapped my early drafts with new friends across oceans and on the other side of the equator, doing my best to help them polish their works before submission to agents and editors alike. Some, I read multiple drafts, even watching as an author “unkilled” a character. (I much preferred him “bad” to “dead.”)
Goodreads only tracks published titles; therefore, none of my beta reading counted towards my tally. Well shoot. (The exception? A few titles I beta read at the beginning of 2020 hit the shelves by the end of the calendar year. Score!)
Two: Comp Titles
If you would have asked me in 2019 how many romance books I planned to read, the answer would have been zero.
If you would have asked me in 2019 how many romance books I planned to write, the answer would have been laughter.
If you would have told me in 2019 that I’d be published in 2020 for a book I hadn’t yet written in a genre I don’t read, I would have wondered what sort of messed up Tarot reading I’d stumbled upon. Yet, all those things happened.
I did write romance. And then I wrote the sequel.
And to help get it published, I was encouraged to find “comp(arative) titles” to include in my queries. Easier said than done when you’re not familiar with the genre and aren’t even sure you wrote a romance. (We’ve determined “dibs,” is, in fact, a romance.) I still am grateful to the staff at Bookman in Orange for their guidance to this bookworm who rarely ventured out of the Science Fiction/Fantasy stacks (and even then, it was usually to Horror to see if there was any more Peter Straub I hadn’t read) to help me sort through their massive collection of romance to find comp titles that were contemporary (no dukes, pirates, or princesses please), humorous without being slapstick, and fell somewhere on the heat scale between holding hands and a nuclear meltdown.
I discovered new authors that way, and had other readers later compare my works to some of their favorites, too. I now know my way around Guillory and Holiday, Kinsella and Clayton, and hope that one day, my name ends up listed by theirs on someone’s favorite romance author list. (Well, my pen name, anyway.)
Three: Vox Vomitus Guests
2020 had one more curveball for my “TBR” stack, and that would be Vox Vomitus. Fake Latin for “word vomit,” (it might more properly be translated as “emptied voice,” but my Latin isn’t just rusty, it’s dead), I was invited to co-host a live, weekly podcast with one of the fellow authors I’d first connected with after PitMad. She failed to mention it would be a VIDEO podcast but by then I’d already agreed.
Every Wednesday, we’d go live with a bestselling author or creator, and while our show is most definitely unscripted, I’d do my best to read at least a sample of each of our guests’ work. I had the privilege to talk Lovecraft Country and 88 Names with Matt Ruff and ask about his hidden Easter Eggs (which were there, but the Margo in question wasn’t the one I had guessed), discuss which mashup best describes Natalie Zina Walschotts’ Hench (I’m sticking with The Boys meets Doctor Horrible, but with less singing), and I even fell in love with a Bot. (Thanks, Simon Stephenson’s Set My Heart to Five. I already named my Airfryer, but now I feel bad for putting it in a cabinet.)
Some of these authors I hopefully would have found on my own—eventually—since they’re in my science fiction wheelhouse (or adjacent) but so many of them defy easy categorization. (When in doubt, let the bookstore figure it out!) We’re set to talk to more authors, narrators, and I even managed to reach out to the author of a book I stumbled upon and have him booked for our show in February.
I have no idea what’s in store for me in 2021, but my TBR grows by the hour.
Happy New Year, and Happy Reading
Beyond COVID’s quarantines and social distancing and the complete upheaval of how most of us lived our lives, my reading life underwent three massive changes.
One: Beta Reading
At the end of 2019, I dipped my toe in this little thing called “PitMad.” (The “mad” part is not hyperbolic.) I stopped being a lonely little author, writing in my own corner of the world, and became part of an international community. I swapped my early drafts with new friends across oceans and on the other side of the equator, doing my best to help them polish their works before submission to agents and editors alike. Some, I read multiple drafts, even watching as an author “unkilled” a character. (I much preferred him “bad” to “dead.”)
Goodreads only tracks published titles; therefore, none of my beta reading counted towards my tally. Well shoot. (The exception? A few titles I beta read at the beginning of 2020 hit the shelves by the end of the calendar year. Score!)
Two: Comp Titles
If you would have asked me in 2019 how many romance books I planned to read, the answer would have been zero.
If you would have asked me in 2019 how many romance books I planned to write, the answer would have been laughter.
If you would have told me in 2019 that I’d be published in 2020 for a book I hadn’t yet written in a genre I don’t read, I would have wondered what sort of messed up Tarot reading I’d stumbled upon. Yet, all those things happened.
I did write romance. And then I wrote the sequel.
And to help get it published, I was encouraged to find “comp(arative) titles” to include in my queries. Easier said than done when you’re not familiar with the genre and aren’t even sure you wrote a romance. (We’ve determined “dibs,” is, in fact, a romance.) I still am grateful to the staff at Bookman in Orange for their guidance to this bookworm who rarely ventured out of the Science Fiction/Fantasy stacks (and even then, it was usually to Horror to see if there was any more Peter Straub I hadn’t read) to help me sort through their massive collection of romance to find comp titles that were contemporary (no dukes, pirates, or princesses please), humorous without being slapstick, and fell somewhere on the heat scale between holding hands and a nuclear meltdown.
I discovered new authors that way, and had other readers later compare my works to some of their favorites, too. I now know my way around Guillory and Holiday, Kinsella and Clayton, and hope that one day, my name ends up listed by theirs on someone’s favorite romance author list. (Well, my pen name, anyway.)
Three: Vox Vomitus Guests
2020 had one more curveball for my “TBR” stack, and that would be Vox Vomitus. Fake Latin for “word vomit,” (it might more properly be translated as “emptied voice,” but my Latin isn’t just rusty, it’s dead), I was invited to co-host a live, weekly podcast with one of the fellow authors I’d first connected with after PitMad. She failed to mention it would be a VIDEO podcast but by then I’d already agreed.
Every Wednesday, we’d go live with a bestselling author or creator, and while our show is most definitely unscripted, I’d do my best to read at least a sample of each of our guests’ work. I had the privilege to talk Lovecraft Country and 88 Names with Matt Ruff and ask about his hidden Easter Eggs (which were there, but the Margo in question wasn’t the one I had guessed), discuss which mashup best describes Natalie Zina Walschotts’ Hench (I’m sticking with The Boys meets Doctor Horrible, but with less singing), and I even fell in love with a Bot. (Thanks, Simon Stephenson’s Set My Heart to Five. I already named my Airfryer, but now I feel bad for putting it in a cabinet.)
Some of these authors I hopefully would have found on my own—eventually—since they’re in my science fiction wheelhouse (or adjacent) but so many of them defy easy categorization. (When in doubt, let the bookstore figure it out!) We’re set to talk to more authors, narrators, and I even managed to reach out to the author of a book I stumbled upon and have him booked for our show in February.
I have no idea what’s in store for me in 2021, but my TBR grows by the hour.
Happy New Year, and Happy Reading
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