I followed this link and created my own custom query with pagination.. but I don't really understand how the offset works,
<https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/21626/pagination-with-custom-sql-query>

the pagination does not work well. and I'm getting zero value for offset. 

```
function spiciest(){
global $wpdb, $paged, $max_num_pages;

$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
$post_per_page = intval(get_query_var('posts_per_page')); //6
$offset = ($paged - 1)*$post_per_page;
/* Custom sql here. I left out the important bits and deleted the body
 as it will be specific when you have your own. */
$sql = "
    SELECT DISTINCT * FROM $wpdb->posts
    INNER JOIN (SELECT *, SUBSTRING(name, 6) as 'post_ID',
    votes_up  AS votes_balance,
    votes_up + votes_down AS votes_total
    FROM thumbsup_items) AS thumbsup
    ON $wpdb->posts.ID = thumbsup.post_ID
    WHERE $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish'
    AND $wpdb->posts.post_type = 'post'
    AND $wpdb->posts.post_password = ''
    ORDER BY votes_up DESC, votes_balance DESC
    LIMIT ".$offset.", ".$post_per_page."; ";

$sql_result = $wpdb->get_results( $sql, OBJECT);

/* Determine the total of results found to calculate the max_num_pages
 for next_posts_link navigation */
$sql_posts_total = $wpdb->get_var( "SELECT FOUND_ROWS();" );
$max_num_pages = ceil($sql_posts_total / $post_per_page);

print_r("offset ". $offset."\n") ;
print_r("\n"."sql_posts_total ". $sql_posts_total."\n") ;
print_r("\n"."max_num_pages ". $max_num_pages."\n") ;
return $sql_result;
}

```

Please see it live.. I have printed the vlues.. <http://goo.gl/fZTck>
It should have 7 pages with a total of 39 entries.