One In Ten Books...
...this is more or less my "best-of" ratio in a year.
One of my favorite creators, Ya Boi Zack, intentionally cratered his YouTube following over the last year because he realized a large amount of his viewers were just there for Culture War stuff, and didn’t actually care about the books he was putting out. He started attacking that sector of his audience so that they’d unsubscribe and leave, and his remaining viewers would be actual consumers and readers of his graphic novels.
As a result his channel, which once had around 107k subs, is just over 90k now. It was a ballsy move that reflects a kind of artistic integrity that 1) you don’t see often, and 2) is usually paired up with financial security of some sort.
This doesn’t reduce the ballsiness of it, it’s just good tactics. He knows what he’s after and also what he wants to avoid.
Last year his ROCK N’ ROLL NINJA made my best-of-’24 list. Other books of his have been above-average, and I’ve always enjoyed his takes and recommendations from his channel (dating back to 2017). I sampled a few of his other titles and I could tell they wouldn’t be for me, so I didn’t get in on them (Iron Sights being the most obvious one.) Generally his tastes and sensibilities align with my own and he makes really good art.
In a recent video he was going over his numbers on a spreadsheet from his various crowdfunding campaigns, dating back to 2018. The one number he didn’t know was how many people have actually read the books they bought from him, and whether those books are important to them as readers, to whatever degree. His stats only track sales and progress, not the passion side of an art piece.
That got me thinking: I’m a high-volume reader, thanks to 1) my job and 2) audiobooks. I wish it didn’t take me so long to read print books but that’s just where I am in life. If I couldn’t multitask, I would read as many books, and I love books too much not to do that. I average around 100 books a year, and have done so since 2008 (maybe longer.)
But how many of them are “important books”? How many would I read again? That’s a harder question to ask. Generally for every ten books I read, one makes the BOY list.
In 2025, I have (so far) read 88 books. 21 are in print, many of those are comic trades or graphic novels, so actual print books is a low number. 9 books have been re-reads, and 9 are Best Of Year books. Considering we’re almost 10 months in, I’d better find another one to keep pace.
I think this number is fine, probably. It doesn’t bug me that it isn’t higher, although I wish it was easier to find books that really knock my socks off. I’ve read over 2,000 titles though, it’s just going to go this way. Ultimately the goal is to find the best books I can, and read them more than once. (Or else find multiple great books on one subject and keep growing out my knowledge, like the Civil War or the Mayflower.)
If “just reading” was my end goal, I could easily do that. Just like a YouTuber could easily make videos and farm views and bilk ad money out of an audience. But when you really care about great literature—or comics, or films, or whatever—you do the things conducive to finding (or making) them.
Deep thoughts on a Sunday, I know. Anyway, got a few more days until Halloween and a few more weeks until Thanksgiving. It’s nice that they come around every year. Let me know what you’re reading.