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Monday, April 20, 2015

Ratings by Publisher

Not sure if anyone else will have an interest in this, but recently I was curious (and clearly procrastinating on writing my thesis) about what my average rating per publisher would be. In my mind, I have my favourite publishers that are always coming out with books that I WANT NEED - but if I was to calculate the average of the ratings I've given books by these publishers, would they end up with a higher overall rating than the other publishers? Surprisingly, no. The publisher that I was expecting to be my highest average rated publisher was actually my least well rated publisher overall. And the publisher that had the highest overall rating was a pleasant surprise because I wasn't expecting it to rank so high. Anyways, I thought I would share the results of my findings in case anyone else was interested:

Note: My focus here is on the major publishing houses because I had a greater sample size to work with. For a lot of the smaller independent publishing houses, I had only read a few books from each of them and so I was unable to perform thorough analyses. If you're interested though, out of the smaller publishing houses, Candlewick Press came out on top with a solid 5 out of 5 average rating - all down to my love of Patrick Ness.


Penguin


Overall Average Rating: 4.13

Penguin is part of Penguin Random House now, but most of my ratings on this blog are from the time when Penguin and Random House were separate entities so I will be treating them as separate here as well. When separated from Random House, Penguin has my overall highest rating! I was a little surprised by this, but pleasantly so. When looking at my highest rated books from Penguin over the years, most of them are contemporary, which is even more surprising considering I wouldn't consider that my favourite genre at all. Then again, Stephanie Perkins, John Green, and Gayle Forman are all based out of Penguin and I've loved all of their books so far, so maybe it's not so surprising after all.


Hachette Book Group
Overall Average Rating: 4.09

Hachette Book Group was my second overall highest rated publisher. This makes sense to me as I know that some of my most favourite books have come from them over the years. Namely, the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy by Laini Taylor and Queen Jo's three adult books The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo's Calling, and The Silkworm.


Macmillan
Overall Average Rating: 4.05

Macmillan has a pretty high overall rating and of course it would, being the home of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer and The Grisha by Leigh Bardugo - definite faves!!


Random House

Overall Average Rating: 3.83

When separated from Penguin, Random House has a relatively low overall rating. Then again, Random House has also published two of my most heartbreakingly favourite books of all time: The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, so they're still in my good books.


Simon & Schuster

Overall Average Rating: 3.81

Simon & Schuster Publishers is the second least overall rated publisher. It's too bad because once upon a time, I used to think this publisher was the bees knees, until I hit a string of duds from them which has made me a bit more wary of them. Simon & Schuster is the publisher of one of my all-time favourite series, the amazingly well written The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey. Without the inclusion of this series, my overall rating for Simon & Schuster would be quite a bit lower.


HarperCollins


Overall Average Rating: 3.80

HarperCollins Publishers was my lowest overall rated publisher. Definitely a shocker because I swear HarperCollins books are always the ones that I get MOST excited about. I often have a hard time narrowing down my top choices when I do my quarterly HarperCollins Waiting on Wednesday Catalogue feature. Maybe it's BECAUSE my HarperCollins TBR is always the biggest and I read the most from them that I end up with a few more duds, whereas I am more selective when it comes to the other publishers? I don't know.


I would be interested to hear what you think about this! Have you ever broken down your average ratings by publisher before? Which publisher would you expect to come out on top? I was surprised with my results!


20 comments :

  1. This is really cool Aylee^^ you're making me wonder what my average rating/publisher would be but I doubt I'd ever be brave enough to take the time to add it all up >.< I'm not at all surprised that Penguin is on the top of this list, given how much I love so many of their books! And I tend to agree with you that HarperCollins might be lower simply because you read more from them - which is bound to lead to more duds. I have a feeling Penguin, Hachette and Macmillan would be pretty high up there for me too! This was really neat, thanks for sharing :)

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    1. Heh, it didn't take me too long to do... and I'm always looking for a reason to organize my books in Excel :p I'm weird like that. Yeah, I really do feel like that must be it for HarperCollins - I definitely read more from them than any other publisher so that's bound to have an effect.

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  2. For me, HarperCollins books are either brilliant, or just awful, so they aren't exactly reliable. The most reliable imprint is S&S's Margaret K. McElderry. Their titles are always great. Strange Chemistry was almost 100% reliable for me, but obviously their books didn't sell well since they shut down.

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    1. Ah Margaret K. McElderry - I know I loved The Infernal Devices and The Curse Workers. Kind of disappointed with Cassandra Clare's final Mortal Instruments books though. I can't think of any one publisher or imprint that is completely reliable for me except for Candlewick Press. I adored a lot of books from Strange Chemistry too though so that was so sad!

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  3. I'd LOVE to do this, but does it not take forever to work out? How did you do it?? R x

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    1. Heh, oh I don't know, not FOREVER. I guess I just enjoy that kind of thing! I have my reviews tagged by the publisher as well as rating, so I organized them by publisher, recorded the ratings in Excel, and then found the average. Did not take too long!

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  4. I absolutely love this idea, Aylee!
    I have a feeling Penguin would be pretty high on my list too. I totally agree about getting the most excited about Harper Collins books! I wonder if my ratings of it will be lower than the others too.
    Awesome post! :D

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    1. Thanks, Katie! Yeah, I wonder if that's a common theme among everyone.

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  5. Awesome! I love, love, love stats posts :) I just started tracking publishers this year, so I'm hoping to do a similar analysis for my 2015 wrap-up. I'm also actually breaking it down by imprint because going to ALA last year made me realize how utterly, woefully ignorant I am about imprints. I also would guess Harper Collins would be high on my list, mostly because almost all of the nonfiction on my shelves that I can't wait to get to right now is from them, but we'll see how it turns out :)

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    1. Ooh, I would love to do imprints too! I kind of figured that I might not have big enough sample sizes for them though, so it was easier to group them all together. But I would LOVE to see your results for something like this! Ooh it would be so neat to compare our stats! :D:D

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  6. Oh well now this is such an interesting thing to do- I can imagine it took quite some work to tally it all up and converge all the data into those ratings, but this is really interesting. Particularly that your often most anticipated is at the bottom- I’m guessing that’s because you do read a higher number of their work?
    I have no idea what publisher would be my highest rated… it would be interesting to find out, though I, too, doubt it would be the one I anticipate releases from the most. Who it would be, no idea.
    I’m not sure if I’d have the patience or skills to do this, simply because I get frustrated when things don’t work out if they are at all technological- or at least, when they take a long time!
    This was such a neat idea, Aylee! I really enjoyed reading your summaries! Xx

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    1. Thanks, Romi. It was too bad, time-wise. And I'm always looking for a reason to organize my books in excel, heh.
      Yeah, you might be surprised who ranks highest with you. I know I was pretty surprised with mine. But I can understand how someone who's mind doesn't work like mine does might not want to go to all this trouble!

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  7. This would be interesting to do, Aylee, but I'd actually have to motivate myself to do, lol. I do know that I read books from HarperCollins the most and am not as picky in terms of my selection with them. Generally, their books along with Simon and Schuster's tend to be pretty decent reads, although my rating with Macmillan (and possibly Hachette's) may be a little higher. I generally avoid reading Penguin and Random House books as I've noticed that my experience with their books tend to not be as favourable.

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    1. Haha, I guess I'm pretty weird for wanting to do this X) It's interesting that you think Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins would actually be pretty high on your list, the opposite of me. Too bad you don't want to go to the trouble because it would be interesting to see your results! I was honestly not expecting Penguin to be nearly so high... It really is the conclusion of those contemporary authors that got it up there.

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  8. I loved this post- I felt like I was getting a look into your mind as a researcher. I don't know that I would have the patience to do something like this, but at the same time, I really appreciated it. I am curious now which publishing house I give higher ratings to.

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    1. Heh, I don't know about that ^_^* I don't feel like I have the mind of a researcher, but maybe that's because I surround myself with actual legit scientists at all times, so I always feel inadequate. Thanks Sara :)

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  9. I almost agree with all your ratings and descriptions, but then again, it's sometimes quite different here in India. Most the books we are really looking forward to end up being unavailable at the time of request. But this research you've done is really great! Excellent post.

    Sarika @ The Readdicts

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    1. Ah, I see. Sometimes books in Canada are published by different publishers than the ones in the US so it's a bit trickier as well. Thanks, Sarika :)

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  10. Ah I love this sort of thing! I really do take note of publishers/imprints and the genres they publish. It's been really helpful recognizing trends in what I tend to like by publisher and what I tend to not like (despite pretty covers or fun descriptions).

    Harper Collins tends to suck me in with their beautiful covers, but I find their YA usually focuses to much on romance for my tastes and I end up being bored and unimpressed (especially with their YA paranormal). Though their fantasy and MG books under the Katherine Tegen imprint are usually pretty good for me. Harper Collins MG can be much better for me too.

    Simon and Schuster is usually a pretty good bet for me, especially Aladdin (MG) and "adult lady's gothic fiction" under their Atria imprint.

    I like Penguin's NAL lady and historical fiction books, but their YA is mixed for me. Random House adult historical fiction is usually a win, but their YA can be hit or miss and I don't tend to like their books under the Delacorte imprint.

    Well, I won't bore you with all the publishers/imprints, but suffice it to say, I definitely take note and this has helped me be more selective and improve my odds of finding books I like.

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