So, the BSFA Awards Long List is out – I make it 368 nominees across 9 categories, an average of almost 41. I’ve said it before, but I do wonder to what extent a ‘Long List’ of this length is useful for readers or voters. Of course I am pleased for my friends and for the writers who I admire who are on the Long List; but how much does it really mean? Being on the Long List means that 1 (one) BSFA member nominated you; not being on the Long List means that your friends, if any, in the BSFA ignored you.

I also wonder if the BSFA needs nine award categories, and if so, if it has the right ones. (Plus the tenth, juried, Translation category.) I did think that four or five was too few, back in the old days. This is the third year since the number of categories was almost doubled; it would be interesting to see which of the new awards actually has traction with voters, but I’m not aware that the voting numbers for any stage of the process have been made public.

We do know at least how many works are on each category’s long list. There is some variation, to put it mildly.

Best Fiction for Younger Readers – 17
Best Audio Fiction – 18
Best Non Fiction (Long) – 18
Best Short Non-Fiction – 28
Best Art Work – 37
Best Collection – 41
Best Shorter Fiction – 51
Best Short Fiction – 76
Best Novel – 82

While I’m on the topic of If I Ran The BSFA Awards, I find the ordering of the categories both weird and inconsistent. This week’s long-list announcement has them roughly in alphabetical order, with “Best Non Fiction (Long)” three places away from “Best Short Non-Fiction”, and Best Fiction for Younger Readers at the end. The BSFA website, however, lists the categories roughly in the order that they were created.

Long-list announcement order:	Order on the BSFA website:
Best Audio Fiction Best Artwork Best Collection Best Non-Fiction (Long) Best Novel Best Short Fiction Best Short Non Fiction Best Shorter Fiction Best Fiction for Younger Readers	Best Novel Best Short Fiction Best Shorter Fiction Best Artwork Best Short Non-Fiction Best Long Non-Fiction Best Fiction for Younger Readers Best Collection Best Original Audio Fiction

I think it would be clearer and more helpful for voters and commentators to group like with like, and to adopt something like the following canonical order for the BSFA award categories, with the announcement at the ceremony going through them in reverse:

Best Novel Best Short Fiction Best Shorter Fiction	Fiction (traditional categories)
Best Collection Best Fiction for Younger Readers Best Original Audio Fiction	Fiction (newer categories)
Best Long Non-Fiction Best Short Non-Fiction Best Artwork	Non-fiction and art

The sequencing of the Hugo categories has been developed and honed over the decades, most recently changed by swapping the order of “Best Related Work” and “Best Graphic Story or Comic” in order to group all the fiction categories together.

Anyway. This main point of this post is the analysis of each category, in terms of how well the nominated works score among users of the main book-tracking sites. This isn’t a measure of quality; it’s not a strong predictor of the outcome of the second round voting either; but it is an indication of the extent to which nominees reflect wider popular taste.

I’m bringing in something new – as well as Goodreads and LibraryThing, I’m adding the number of reviewers from Storygraph, which is perhaps a bit more fannish than the other two. In general the Storygraph numbers are four or five times less than the Goodreads numbers, and ten or twenty times more than the LibraryThing numbers. It’s all useful data. (If you find this analysis useful at all.)

I found 158 of the nominees on all three systems, and another 34 on at least one of them. There are six which are presented as separately published works, but don’t have anyone rating them on Goodreads, logging them as owned on LibraryThing or reviewing them on Storygraph. They can all now describe themselves as BSFA long-listees, because one person voted for them.

At the top end of the scale, the most logged book on all three systems is the Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins, in the Best Fiction for Young Readers category. Next, but a very long way behind, is Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, in Best Novel. Third on Goodreads and LibraryThing is The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones, also in Best Novel; third on Storygraph is The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar, in Best Shorter Fiction.

Full numbers below.

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