The Annual Poll results for books published in 2013 are now in!
We added several new categories this year: New Adult, Young Adult, Best Novel with Strong Romantic Elements and Best Sci-fi/Fantasy Romance. We are pleased to see that the new categories also resulted in some new authors winning some of the categories for this year.
Most of the usual categories had tight battles for first place, none so much so as the Best Couple category in which not only did we have a tie for winner, three other couples tied for Honorable Mention. That’s five couples from last year that had an impact on our readers.
This year’s ballot had a total of 23 different categories. On average, readers voted in 13 categories, but 2 percent of you actually voted in all 23 categories. The most popular category was Best Romance Novel, with 93% of you submitting a title. But over three-quarters of you also voted for Favorite Hero, Favorite Romance Couple, and Favorite Funny Romance.
We worried if we would get enough votes for two of the new categories suggested by AAR readers – New Adult and Young Adult. In fact, several voters asked in the comments section if anyone really reads these categories. But approximately one-third of all voters entered a title for each of these categories so they will definitely be included in the poll for best romances of 2014.
Unfortunately, we will bid farewell next year to a longstanding category, Best Women’s Fiction/Chick Lit. This year less than ¼ of all voters entered a title for this category, and there was virtually no consensus, meaning we could not announce a winner. And many of the entries in this category were actually books included in the contemporary romance category.
Another category with no winner is Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Romance but it was not for lack of interest. There were many titles nominated but because of its close relation to Paranormal Romance, votes were split. This category will remain as a 1/3 of our readers entered a title.
This time, due to some last minute problems we switched to using an off-site provider – SurveyMonkey – to hold our poll. While we had to do a lot of last-minute scrambling, it ended up being much easier for us to deal with and we hope that the new system of voting worked well for you.
Click here to see the list of winners and hop over to the accompanying article to see author comments. As always, we look forward to your thoughts.
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I’ll share my nominations for some of the categories that turned out differently from how I voted:
Best Fantasy and Best Young Adult: The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas
Non-U.K. Setting: Once Upon A Tower by Eloisa James
Funniest: The Sum of All Kisses by Julia Quinn
Love Scenes: It Happened One Midnight by Julie Anne Long
Short Story: Beauty and the Blacksmith by Tessa Dare
Hero: Jonathan Redmond (Julie Anne Long)
Heroine: Diana Highwood (Tessa Dare)
Couple: Michael de Grey and Elizabeth Chudderley (Meredith Duran)
“”In fact, several voters asked in the comments section if anyone really reads these categories.””
!!! They’re only two of the most popular genres out there. I’m happy to see AAR expanding its horizons.
Those comments had me wondering, too. Both of those subgenres have very strong sales from everything I’ve seen – not to mention what’s been repeated many times over at RWA for the past 2-3 years.
I really love these polls. I think there are not great surprises. I’m very happy about ‘The Countess Conspiracy’, one of my favourite novels of the year.
It makes me want to read all those I haven’t read yet!
Yo have made me think a lot about the difference between Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Paranormal. One rule could be that you have to vote in the category AAR has put that novel, for instance, or the main category in a data base, FDB for instance.
I like Sci-Fi and Fantasy but I don’t like paranormal, so I have asked myself about the differences. Paranormal, for me, are strange characters (witches, ghosts, vampyres) in a real time and place (contemporary or not), whereas fantasy and Sci-Fi are stories developed in another dimension, in the future, in other worlds or universes or alternate history (distopias, utopias, TT, futuristic…) At least what I love in one genre and I detest in the other.
In the accompanying article you mention that Kate Daniels won for Gunmetal Magic. It was Andrea Nash.
Oops, you are right leslie. Thanks for pointing it out. We will fix it.
Thanks for the quick tabulations.
Maybe on next year’s ballot there can be a short explanation of the Sci-Fi Fantasy vs Paranormal right on the ballot screen. Maybe that would help. I know I kept referring back to the two blog posts about it. I’m also unsure what really constitutes a tear-jerker so kept looking at previous year’s results.
I like that suggestion. Will make a note of it.