Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

New question, is there a way to add multiple genres to a book? Some of the books that I'm currently reading or have coming up are hard to classify as a single main genre.

I just pick one and stick it in that genre.

You can control the genre listings from a hidden column to the right side of the sheet (or maybe it's visible)... but you can't use multiple... or if you do, it won't be added to the pie chart... and you'll get a validation warning that you didn't match any of the options...

The way most sheets are set, there's an area in the upper right with a dozen genres, and those are copied into a dropdown menu in the main sheet, and then those genres are counted and thrown into a pie chart...

But like Soo said, I generally just try to pick a genre or a catchall... Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc... it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for you to modify your genres, tho, to allow for Nonfiction/Other...

I havent really been paying attention to the chart... but i repurposed one of my columns into a subgenre column

@Iain could you plesse take a look at my sheet when you have the time to sdee if everything's ok? Something is off about my book counts. For June I have 19 finished things on the sheet but the June count says 17, and I don't know if that indicates a larger problem. According to GR I've read 188 books but the sheet only has 185...

Yanique wrote: "@Iain could you plesse take a look at my sheet when you have the time to sdee if everything's ok? Something is off about my book counts. For June I have 19 finished things on the sheet but the June..."

Ended up being the same problem it always is... when adding rows/columns, it doesn't copy the formula in the hidden columns...

These sheets have 1-3 hidden columns on the right... the important one is the one that parses the month out of the date column, and uses that to do monthly tallies at the top... before I remembered that, I used the sort range function to sort your sheet by date read... so now, all the entries without a date (like General of Izril), are at the bottom...

FYI for the future... you can fix this by highlighting a couple working cells, and then using the draggable bold bottom right corner, to copy the formula downward... this will copy the formula and correctly adjust the cell variables, as long as the formula writer didn't use $ to lock the variable... if someone uses $F$19, it'll put $F$19 in every cell it's copied to... if they put $F19, it'll do $F20/21/etc downwards... but if you go horizontally, it'll always use $F and the numbers will change... etc...

And on a sidenote... this is the first time I've opened the sheet in 3 months... I'm so behind on recordkeeping...

@Iain thank you!
You’re about to add 800 points right now aren’t you? 🤣🤣🤣

Not quite... but I have some points to add at some point... lots of Buddy Reads...

Yanique wrote: "@Iain thank you!
You’re about to add 800 points right now aren’t you? 🤣🤣🤣"

Updated... went from 283 points to 700 points... little over 400 gained... monthly reading is fluctuating between 250-350 pages/day, still... but that's a bit inflated by the page count rules and the Wandering Inn series, I think...

Nicely done Iain!!!!!

Timelord Iain wrote: "Yanique wrote: "@Iain thank you!
You’re about to add 800 points right now aren’t you? 🤣🤣🤣"

Updated... went from 283 points to 700 points... little over 400 gained... monthly reading is fluctuatin..."

Close enough to my estimate! lol

I noticed that my total points is not adding that my total point column did not add cell K79. Can anyone help?

Thank you.

Frank wrote: "I noticed that my total points is not adding that my total point column did not add cell K79. Can anyone help?

Thank you."

Maybe try the advice Iain left me a few comments ago and see if that fixes it.

What Yanique said... it's probably a hidden cell issue... when new rows are added, they're missing the month grabber formula that's needed to trigger point counting... I'll check...

Sure was... and fixed... I wonder if most/all sheets are missing a formula on 1-2 of the monthly cells... just keeps carrying over, from year to year...

Timelord Iain wrote: "Sure was... and fixed... I wonder if most/all sheets are missing a formula on 1-2 of the monthly cells... just keeps carrying over, from year to year..."

Iain thank you so much.
Hope all is well with you.

Iain, that's possibly has no impact on data, but in 'participants data' I'm in reading challenge since 1st Jan, when I actually joined in Feb 12th if I'm not wrong...
Sorry if I'm a pain on backside ;)

Easy fix, just an oversight… the start date is only used for the stats section, which measures pages/points per day, and predicted points by Halloween…

Interesting but of info :) Predictions for me look nice ;)

Iain did you fix this date thingy on sheet for me? Just added books I finished this week :) I don't think I reach predicted points by Halloween LOL!

Monika wrote: "Iain did you fix this date thingy on sheet for me? Just added books I finished this week :) I don't think I reach predicted points by Halloween LOL!"

Got sidetracked... checked now... looks like I thought I set your start date to Feb 12th, but accidentally set Melissa's instead... the name above you on Participant Data...

LOL! You had 'blond moment' :) I'm reading as much as possible during recovery after op. Starting re-read of 'Mistborn' book 1 (The only one I have at home so far). Have a nice week!

So our reading competition is done with 31 October right? I'll still put on my sheet all I read till end of year if that's not a problem.

Ooh I forgot about it ending. I better update my spreadsheet with the books I read over the last few months.

I'm pretty sure I changed how the sheets worked this year, for everyone, so that books listed as being read in November/December won't skew competition points... I'll doublecheck at some point...

EDIT: Yea, looks like I did... was easier to give that to everyone, than to pick and choose...

So, feel free to keep using the sheet, even if points are purely there for personal monthly comparisons and the italics row near the top :D

You did, no worries. Points only count till yesterday. Rest is added in other cells of sheet :)

I'm looking forward to next year's competition. I feel as though I've read more this year than ever before in part thanks to seeing so many other people here constantly reading.

Also I'm going to go ahead and petition that next year there be a team called The Horns of Hammerad and to please place me on it if it exists lol

I am also looking forward to next year's competition! But I look forward to it every year:))) My favorite part is actually having a spreadsheet with all those bells and whistles, which I can keep track on. I have no idea how I ever lived without it before!

I completely forgot to update my sheet. Can I still do that or is it too late?

Olivia wrote: "I completely forgot to update my sheet. Can I still do that or is it too late?" Not too late at all! Update away.

Yanique wrote: "Olivia wrote: "I completely forgot to update my sheet. Can I still do that or is it too late?" Not too late at all! Update away."

Thank you, I just did!

Just an idea but has anyone ever thought to have like a 'lifetime fantasy BR' spreadsheet that's just never ending to see how everyone who has ever participated does over longer periods of time?

Julian wrote: "I'm looking forward to next year's competition. I feel as though I've read more this year than ever before in part thanks to seeing so many other people here constantly reading.

Also I'm going to..."

Horns of Hammerad!! Waaaaa!!!! I can't think of anything that tops that... My brain keeps coming up with lesser ideas, none worthy of sharing.

I agree on the 'Horns of Hammerad' - team. That would be super!

@Julian: do you mean a spreadsheet with all the BR's that happened and the ongoing ones? Maybe like a 'group bookshelf BR' or so?

I think he means a sheet that collects all the data from all years… it would probably be super laggy… and alot of work to pull off

Who won then? 😄

I feel like my team were doing great for the first few months then Soo disappeared 😂

Siobhan wrote: "Who won then? 😄

I feel like my team were doing great for the first few months then Soo disappeared 😂"

My team, the Jaghut Guardians, seems to have taken a 64 point lead lately... a few days ago it was super tight... kept going back and forth with House of Chains with a gap of less than 10 points... but someone clearly came along and did a sizeable book drop...

I agree, if Soo is healthy and secretly read books all year while being more real life social, and had come back, she could have probably single-handedly taken your team back to first place... but if that's the case, she's running out of time... only a few hours left until the deadline...

Saar The Book owl wrote: "I agree on the 'Horns of Hammerad' - team. That would be super!

@Julian: do you mean a spreadsheet with all the BR's that happened and the ongoing ones? Maybe like a 'group bookshelf BR' or so?"

Ditto to the Horns of Hammerad... I love how many new Wandering Inn fans were created this year... so I'm probably not a very impartial mod, when it comes to this...

I leave the Year 6 rules and stuff to Niki to figure out, as the active OG mod...

Siobhan wrote: "Who won then? 😄

I feel like my team were doing great for the first few months then Soo disappeared 😂"

I feel like the team I'm on never wins ^^; lol I'm such an on and off again reader XD

Katie wrote: "I feel like the team I'm on never wins ^^; lol I'm such an on and off again ..."

I've only been on a team that one once. It's never good if I'm the second highest points earner on the team, lol, which is what happened this year.

How did this year's contest compare to past?

Not too bad, actually... People need to get in the habit of filling out their spreadsheet as they go, but we had some good participation... We all miss Soo though... I really hope she is ok! I myself missed most of last year because of cancer treatments - I couldn't concentrate and didn't read at all, so I let my team down in 21... I have been back to the usual these days. I hope she is having too much fun in real life to read...

I hope so too. Miss her

Tammie wrote: "Katie wrote: "I feel like the team I'm on never wins ^^; lol I'm such an on and off again ..."

I've only been on a team that one once. It's never good if I'm the second highest points earner on th..."

Right? lol. Some of those highest reader scores are just insane O.O

I took some screenshots to post and compare...

The sheet was cobbled together in 2018... the original plan was to track everything in team thread comments (we sure dodged a bullet there... the spreadsheet proved so much better... Rob started it, then people like Lundos started creating statistics that were interesting to fiddle around with... by summer, me and Yanique were adding tabs to track more stuff, group-wide...

2018: (view spoiler)[







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In 2019, we rebuilt the Scoreboard / Main Page, to include all the data that was spread across 3 tabs in 2018...

2019: (view spoiler)[



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In 2020, we rebuilt everything from the ground up, incorporating every cool idea we had... color coding, templates, extra stats on each person's page if they wanted monthly stats, etc... mostly Virginie, with a bit of input/help from me and Rob, and cheerleading from Annika...

This was also the only year we tried only doing 2 teams instead of 4... the team names were mashups of the 4 team team names...

2020: (view spoiler)[



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From here on, I became the official maintainer... I was always around to help fix errors that cropped up and stuff, but it was more of a team effort until Virginie disappeared...

2021: (view spoiler)[



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Main addition in 2022 was the November/December functionality, and making sure they are excluded from the January to October point totals...

2022: (view spoiler)[



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Doing this, I noticed I've been on alot of winning teams... 3 out of 5 years... anyone with a better record?

Total Competition Points have dropped over the years, since participation has dropped... we're a long way from the 56 Participants in the first year... numbers are up 20% this year compared to last year, even with Soo missing...

I'm actually #1 in Best Buddy with 100%, but I think that's wrong? I don't know how it's calculated, but I did only 1 or 2 BR's this year...

I love the competition. It forces me to branch out and read books I might never had considered and always nice to read with people. I look forward to it every year

Saar The Book owl wrote: "I'm actually #1 in Best Buddy with 100%, but I think that's wrong? I don't know how it's calculated, but I did only 1 or 2 BR's this year..."

Fixed it... those types of errors crop up in custom sheets with extra columns, because I/we need to go in and modify the formulas in the Participant Data sheet that grab info from player sheets for leaderboard calculations... it was using total points as BR points and BR points as Challenge points...

Participation Percent is determined by whether or not your BR Points >= Total Points / 3, since BRs are a 33% bonus to points... they are then rounded down to a 100% maximum, because it's actually possible to exceed 100%, since all point calculations are rounded to 1 decimal place... it would have actually been more obvious it was bugged if it said you were a 300% Buddy Reader :D

Tammie wrote: "Katie wrote: "I feel like the team I'm on never wins ^^; lol I'm such an on and off again ..."

I've only been on a team that one once. It's never good if I'm the second highest points earner on th..."

I meant won not one, lol. My brain is tired.