And the Results are In!

Thanks yet again for your continued support of the Annual Poll. We would also like to thank all the authors, publishers and readers who publicized the poll, whether online or just by word of mouth.

This year’s AAR Annual Reader Poll for Best 2012 Romance Books had some pretty interesting new obstacles. With the proliferation of so many ebooks being published, the votes for authors, titles and characters were incredibly wide-ranging. Publication dates also caused some confusion for readers and for us. As a result, we took extra precautions to make sure books were published for the first time in 2012 and were not previously published in a digital format. Another interesting outcome is that only two categories yielded honorable mentions meaning almost every category had a standalone winner showing that this year our readers were very decisive about the books they loved. And finally, there is a phenomenon that we pollsters are familiar with called ‘vote splitting’. This is where an author has more than one book published in the year and each title garners its own set of votes thus splitting the author’s chances of winning in a specific category by up to 50%. Many authors have had this obstacle in their path and still found their way into the winner’s circle, for example, this year, Sarah Mayberry had two books vying for attention, nevertheless, she won a category while Sherry Thomas was able to pull off an outright win even with a three title handicap. So without further ado, here are some favorite authors and a newbie who received wins and an Honorable Mention. (Note: Honorable Mentions are awarded when a second (or third) place title receives within 20% of the votes cast for the winner.)

For complete poll results, continue reading here.

– Lee Brewer, LinnieGayl Kimmel, and Cindy Smith