Thanks yet again for your continued support of the Annual Poll. We would also like to thank all the authors, publishers and readers who publicized the poll, whether online or just by word of mouth.
This year’s AAR Annual Reader Poll for Best 2012 Romance Books had some pretty interesting new obstacles. With the proliferation of so many ebooks being published, the votes for authors, titles and characters were incredibly wide-ranging. Publication dates also caused some confusion for readers and for us. As a result, we took extra precautions to make sure books were published for the first time in 2012 and were not previously published in a digital format. Another interesting outcome is that only two categories yielded honorable mentions meaning almost every category had a standalone winner showing that this year our readers were very decisive about the books they loved. And finally, there is a phenomenon that we pollsters are familiar with called ‘vote splitting’. This is where an author has more than one book published in the year and each title garners its own set of votes thus splitting the author’s chances of winning in a specific category by up to 50%. Many authors have had this obstacle in their path and still found their way into the winner’s circle, for example, this year, Sarah Mayberry had two books vying for attention, nevertheless, she won a category while Sherry Thomas was able to pull off an outright win even with a three title handicap. So without further ado, here are some favorite authors and a newbie who received wins and an Honorable Mention. (Note: Honorable Mentions are awarded when a second (or third) place title receives within 20% of the votes cast for the winner.)
For complete poll results, continue reading here.
– Lee Brewer, LinnieGayl Kimmel, and Cindy Smith
Ours is a different sort of poll this year. After all, our listeners selected their all time favorite romance audiobooks in 
It seems hard to believe, but with the start of July we are now at the halfway point in the 2012 reading year. Many of us made resolutions back in early January about the reading we were going to do this coming year. Well, in the midst of polling for the best of 2011 romances here in AAR’s Annual Reader Poll, we pollsters made a resolution to do some sneak peeks for some categories that will appear in the next Annual Reader Poll. We decided we would focus on a few of the more problematic categories in the 2011 poll.
Ask just about any romance listener to choose their favorite romance audiobooks and it’s highly likely they will choose a book from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, J.D. Robb’s In Death, or Susan Elizabeth Phillips Chicago Stars series. And never has that been more obvious than with our Speaking of Audiobooks 
It’s the beginning of a new year and many of us readers are looking forward to the next must-have title by our favorite authors and those wonderful cherry-on-top moments of discovering a new auto-buy author during 2012. We know this time is special and fun, and we ourselves are basking in the newness of it all. And yet, we need your help in looking back at the books you loved and those that left you wanting so much more from last year, 2011. Today is the start of our 
