Quick Thoughts - 2015 Statistics

So 2015 is officially over and done, and, as promised, I have stats for you all. Now, maybe you've noticed that I am rather…a fan of statistics. Well I am. So to have an entire year of data, without holes, is amazing. So amazing. And instead of frontloading this post with analysis of the data, I will start things out by just posting it. So yeah:

2015 Stats
Month	# Stories	# Words	Average Words	<1500	1500-7500	>7500	Shortest	Longest
January	61	306695	5028	5	47	9	911	15805
February	60	221820	3697	13	42	5	349	15347
March	63	242053	3842	13	47	3	213	14004
April	67	280780	4191	14	46	7	237	22548
May	50	222728	4455	5	42	3	510	14373
June	70	276295	3947	16	47	7	142	19323
July	57	271079	4756	6	40	11	638	14800
August	57	221554	3887	8	45	4	97	15034
September	52	228589	4396	6	43	3	543	15000
October	89	356908	4010	23	58	8	349	28027
November	55	238754	4341	7	41	7	205	13714
December	61	251850	4129	10	48	3	250	14475
Total	742	3119105	4223	126	546	70	97	28027

And there you have it. I will start out by saying: wow. Thank you, writers of the world. Thank you for giving me 742 different stories to read this year. That's over three million words of reading. That's…well, that's quite a bit. And by and large I have enjoyed the vast majority of those stories. So yeah, my thanks go out to anyone who writes and anyone who publishes and anyone who inspires great stories. You rock. Keep on keepin' on. 

I want to look a bit at the Total row a bit, aside from the actual totals. The average word count is quite interesting to me, because it does seem to be (in my experiences at least) about the "preferred" length most publications list on their guidelines. So it's not exactly a lie. Of course, some of that might be trended down a little because the stories I look are more likely to be under 1500 words than they are over 7500 words. I've talked about this in the past, but I suspect a lot that has to do with the fact that I do not read many novellas, or publications that put out novellas. Tor is about the only publication that regularly puts out work of that length. If I read F&SF, Asimov's, and Analog I would certainly expect that average word count to creep up a bit. Of course, if I read Daily Science Fiction I expect that average would go down. Those are really the biggest holes in my reading, and they aren't holes I'm likely to close any time soon. With the sheer volume of work I try to review, it's just not really possible to keep up on everything (sorry!). 

But yeah, just to touch on the by the numbers word counts. Of the 742 stories, only 70 qualify for the novelette category for the Hugos. The Hugos? Why yes, I might take this time to suggest maybe possibly thinking about shifting some categories in the Hugos. Just looking at things by the numbers, that's 70 novelettes or novellas that I read and 672 short stories. I actually read more flash fiction (work under 150) than I read novellas and novelettes combined. Especially because it's difficult to compete with longer short stories as a flash piece, flash tend to be excluded from things. Which is a shame, because flash is amazing. It would be nice to see flash maybe get an award category somewhere. But okay, okay, I'll quiet down about that. Obviously there is a great range of story lengths, from 97 words to 28027 words. That's…a bit difference. It's great that there is room for all these different tales. 

So now to the month-to-month breakdowns. October was absolutely crazy. 89 stories, including the longest story of the year, It snagged the most stories, most total words, longest story, most flash fiction stories, and most regular short stories. It was also in the top three for novelette or longer stories and about middle of the road as far as average word count is concerned (probably dropped because of all that flash). Longest average story, longest shortest story, and least number of flash fiction stories came in January, which also had the second most total words of any month. Least total words and shortest story came in August, and least total stories, least flash fictions stories, and tied for least novelettes and higher came in May. There really isn't too much a drastic shift month to month in any category, though obviously there are small things like special issues with lots of flash or lots of novelettes and some months just seem kind of slow. I'm actually surprised I started out as fast as I did, with so much in January, because 2016 seems to be off to a slow start. Still, there's time to turn that around. 

All said, I'm rather pleased with how 2015 went, review-wise. I wrote 313 posts for Quick Sip Reviews, and while I somewhat suspect my stats will decrease some in 2016, I think I'll still do all right. Anyway, there are the stats. Perhaps I will post the master list of stories I've reviewed at some point, complete with typos and copy/pasted word counts (where they weren't available from the publisher). Thanks for reading! 

All the best, 

Charles Payseur