I should start this post with this little tidbit: I am unnaturally obsessed with Goodreads. Actually, I am obsessed with organising things that don't need organising, and that just happens to include all of my books and shelves on Goodreads.
When I shared
some posts I had no intention of publishing, a few people mentioned they'd like to read this. Since I already had it written, I figured why not.... 8 months later.
However - if you don't like books, Goodreads, obsessively organising things, you should definitely skedaddle.
Basically, I use Goodreads for 2 main reasons:
1. To keep track of what I have read.
2. To keep track of what I want to read.
When you join Goodreads, you get a few default shelves:
I think you also get a favourites shelf, but I deleted that.
Looking at those, it
should satisfy what I want to use Goodreads for... but I want to know more. I want to know how I read a book, how I got the book, what I have sitting at home that I should really read next, what I have sitting on the kindle (out of sight out of mind has never been more true) etc etc. Also, I am ashamed to admit it but I have bought books I already owned (several times) because I didn't remember I'd already bought it. I will also forget netgalley books if I get caught up in other books.
So I added a bunch of shelves.
The top 9 shelves are 'exclusives'. Meaning a book on one of these shelves can
only be on one shelf. You can't 'want to read' a book you've already read. You can even add your own exclusive shelf; the most common is something like a DNF or not interested shelf. These won't count towards books you've read, and you won't accidentally add it to your read list.
Here are some shelving tips from Goodreads - you can view these when you edit your shelves.
Exclusive: the book can be on only one of these shelves.
This is how I keep track of the what to read next conundrum - it keeps my library list organised, not to mention my netgalley list - both of these can get out of control if I'm not careful. It also - hypothetically - stops me buying a book I already own.
read: self explanatory.
currently reading: also pretty obvious.
to-read: these are books I want to read but don't own or haven't gotten from the library. This is where they go when I read a SUYB recommendation until I physically have it in my hands/on my kindle.
dnf: a book I gave up on and have no desire to ever pick up. Yes, I should have more. I am horrible at giving up on books.
tbr-arcs: these are my blogging for books or netgalley books that I need to read.
tbr-audio: these are audiobooks I've purchased and are sitting in my audible account.
tbr-ku: kindle unlimited books.
tbr-library: these are obviously all my library books - both real and ebooks.
tbr-own: all the books I've purchased and aren't going anywhere or don't require reviews to be written. These are both real and ebook format as well.
If you want to make an exclusive shelf, you go into 'edit my shelves' and tick exclusive. See below.
Not Exclusive: the book can be on multiple shelves.
This is how I keep track of the how part of everything. How I got it, how I read it, what for, etc etc. These shelves include everything - read and unread.
arcs: these are mainly netgalley books with a couple from blogging for books.
audiobooks: books I read with my ears.
botm: I just started book of the month after hearing about it from Steph.
e-books: kindle books or books I read on the computer.
erin-challenge: I just started doing a shelf for challenges and it makes things so simple! I just change the number when a new challenge starts, and remove the previous challenge books when it's over.
kindle-unlimited: I go back and forth with kindle unlimited books, I start and cancel it a few times a year, but I still track them. These are technically 'purchased' books as well, but I don't mark them as such because 'kindle-unlimited' implies that I paid money (subscription) for them.
library: All books I have read (or are sitting at home) from the library. I only joined late last year, pretty good!
purchased-2015-prior: I want to keep track of books I haven't read and how long they've been sitting there waiting to be read. So I created these. Some of them I couldn't remember when I bought them, so I just lumped them all together here.
purchased-2016: I did start keeping track in 2016 though and ouch, that's a lot of books. This includes audible credits as well.
purchased-2017: and books I've bought this year. The purchased thing is the only thing I'm not sure about because I track anything I 'buy' even if it doesn't actually cost me any money, like amazon freebies. I know that seems weird. But I want to see how often I choose a book I don't own already and won't get to return, if that makes sense. Perhaps I should make a 'free' shelf.
real-books: paperback or hardback.
You can see how they are separated, exclusives vs normal when you click on 'my books' up the top.
Recording re-reads with Goodreads:
I used to track every time I re-read a book because I wanted it to count towards my yearly challenge, but also because I wanted to know how often I re-read books (oh! I should create a re-read shelf, right?!). I used to do this a complicated way by choosing a different edition, so I would have duplicates on my shelves. However, now goodreads lets you add multiple reads, which is fabulous.
One more thing I love about Goodreads:
Last year when I did my '
best of 2016' and included all my stats (who doesn't love statistics?! am I right?) I used Goodreads to help me get that information. Goodreads doesn't give me all that information, but you can download an excel and extrapolate it yourself. Have I lost everybody with that?
When you click on 'my books' and scroll down, you'll see tools.
Stats takes you to this page, and you can view your stats by year. As you can see, the little graph on the side shows you how your reading is split by your shelves. Because I use so many shelves for different reasons, the graph doesn't really work for me.
Import/Export takes you to where you can get an excel spreadsheet of your entire library. That's what I do. You click on 'Export Library', give it a few and then when it says 'Your export from whenever' click on that, an excel spreadsheet downloads.
I will stop there because otherwise this will get even longer, but basically I just delete everything from the excel spreadsheet except for the books I read in that year and then I sort by shelves and calculate the percentages. I'm not weird! It's fine!
So. This all sounds insanely complicated, but it really isn't. To recap on how I organise my shelves:
- I want to read a book, I add it to my 'to read' shelf.
- I buy a book, I mark it as 'tbr-own', 'tbr-ku' or 'tbr-audio' depending on what it is, and then I mark it as 'real-books', 'e-books' or 'audiobooks'.
- I get approved for an ARC and I mark it as 'tbr-arcs' and (most often) 'ebooks'.
- I get a book from the library or an ebook comes in - I mark it as 'tbr-library' and 'ebooks or real books'. I
do not mark them until I have actually picked them up or downloaded them to my ebook. If I don't read a book in time before I have to return it, I remove it from those shelves.
Here's a look at a few books and how I mark them for whatever they are:
I was going to add a shelf called 'Show Us Your Books Recs' or 'Blogger Recs' because sometimes I go through my shelves and think
how the heck did this book get here and then I delete it if it doesn't sound good which is sad because I obviously added it for a reason. That being said, if I did have a shelf like that, I would basically add all of my books to that shelf because I get like 90% off my recommendations from other bloggers, and mainly from the link up.
It might seem a little extreme to be this organised in reading books, but I love it. Sometimes I spend hours organising Goodreads instead of, you know, reading.
Is there anyone else out there that loves to organise books on Goodreads? Or is this one of those things where everyone is looking at me like I'm crazy....?