NoveList takes a multi-faceted approach to creating reading recommendations to ensure that readers will walk away with a book they’ll enjoy. Each recommendation includes the reason why the recommendation was made in order to help the reader decide whether it’s a good match for them.
Our experts evaluate and write recommendations, crafting them by hand. Along with their recommendation, they include an explanation as to why it is a good match, citing not only subjects, but appeal elements such as topic, characterization, tone, location, and writing style. The recommendations are then approved by a NoveList editor. Note that hand-crafted recommendations will include the name of the professional who wrote the recommendation.
We do as many of those hand-crafted recommendations as we possibly can, but we also have a very sophisticated algorithm that considers subjects, our signature appeal terms, and more to create additional recommendations. We have several teams that regularly evaluate and tweak the algorithm, with the goal of matching readers with their perfect books. So, even the recommendations generated by the NoveList algorithm are based off the careful thought of our expert librarians.
