Something, all of us are faced with, no matter how big or small a blog we are, is our TBR pile.
Our To Be Read pile, usually called, the TBR, is often a source of stress for book bloggers. No matter how much of a conservative you are as far as accepting reviews, or purchasing books, there are always so many good books out there that our TBR gets the best of us. And as those books pile up, with the thought that we have to read faster and faster, reading can become a stressful act, not a relaxing past-time. No one wants this. We started book blogging for the love of reading. Proper organization of our review books and better discretion as far as accepting review copies could easily reduce stress and make book blogging more enjoyable.
Here are a few suggestions as far as prioritizing and organizing your TBR.
Join a Book Social Site
The biggest suggestion is managing your list through online book sites such as goodreads.com or Librarything.com. My TBR has grown so exponentially since the last TBR post that I’ve even given to creating a goodreads.com account just to manage my TBR books in my possession. My main Goodreads account is currently used to manage my read pile and to-be-reviewed area along with marking books that I want to read, but have not purchased or received for review. To separate books that are in my possession I’ve set up a new account (I’ve used my gaming Facebook account as login) and I only mark books that I plan to review. It is a quick way to check release dates, publishers and I can label them how I received them, whether a purchase, unsolicited, solicited etc.
This list can also be exported as an Excel spreadsheet and imported into your local programs or even into Google Docs (which is what I use). In my document I keep track of reading dates, publication contacts or author contacts (whomever sent the book) and the email I need to forward the review link. I can also prioritize within this document (without being seen in a social site) and mark notes.
Prioritize Your List
Now that all the books are in a document, or at least marked in a book site, my second suggestion is to prioritize. There is one thing you have to realize, the bigger your contact list expands, the more review requests you will receive, not to mention, more and more unsolicited review copies will come in. You have to decide which of these books have priority.
I personally place the books that I say “Yes” to as top priority. These authors or publishers took the time to email me with the request and the synopsis was something that I believed I would enjoy, therefor they take the top spot. Second on the list will be the unsolicited books that I wanted to read. They are like little gifts of joy in the mailbox, those, even thought I probably want to read them first, will be second on the priority list. Next, book club, feature, or purchased books that I am reading for a reason. (Chasing a series for a review copy etc) Next, NetGalley request (and now you are realizing why I don’t request many via NetGalley), because no one is waiting on those with my name attached to them. Finally, it would be books I purchased or collected via a convention. All this would be noted in my spreadsheet or book site.
Editorial Calendar
Now that you’ve organized your list and prioritized who you should read first…the next step is setting up your editorial calendar. I found a beautiful plugin for this (search editorial calendar), but those of you who don’t self-host, might utilize Google Calendar, or even a simple desk calendar. I always note release dates of the books in my possession. Then I check the calendar a month before release date and that is the round about time I should be posting my review. Give myself a week to read and another week to write the review (always better to over estimate time), this puts a month and a half before release date to start reading. I can always read before then, but usually if I don’t get to the book a month and a half before release date, it usually isn’t happening in time.
Digitally organized and prioritized? Time to organize your shelves. Never mix your TBR books with your read books on your bookshelves. It is a good way to loose them. Even if you don’t have an actual shelf and it turns into a stack on your floor, keep the separated and easy to locate.
Do this for your eBooks also, place them in folders, separated from your read or bought piles.
Shelves in order? Now for a priority check for you. If you are stressed out right now, there might also be other things besides organization that is getting you in this predicament.
First thing to remember. You can’t read them all. There is no way that I can, my intake is way larger than my output. Literally, I probably “agree” to a review once or twice a month and put in a request from review catalogs every now and again. It usually breaks down to 4 or 5 books a month that are actually planned. Unsolicited will usually double if not triple my intake. If I could read a book every other day this would be perfect. But, life and work and writing reviews and posts don’t allow for a book every other day. So, accept it that not all will be read on time. Then if it gets so bad, I again might have to call an “All-Stop” to accepting review copies at all. When it gets out of hand you have to say no – no – no. No matter how good the book looks.
I hope you learned something from this post, this of course is my way of doing things and you have to find what works for you and be consistent in everything you do. The main thing is to stay organized and on top of things. I let things slip about six months ago and I still have reined everything in. I’m just now getting comfortable again. Some find solace in switching to only reviewing books they request. Others have jumped out of the “free books” completely and have gone to only reviewing their purchased copies. Some just go to cons and stock up on the latest and greatest which hold them over for months. Find what works for you and move it along. It’ll even out eventually — or at least I hope.
Thank you to Heather & Diayll for posing the questions that started this discussion.
Questions for my Readers:
Do you have any tips on how to manage your TBR? What works for you?
Happy Thursday. Talk Less. Read More. Blog with Integrity.
Have a question? Fill out the form by clicking on the button to the left. This will go into a spreadsheet to be looked over at a later date and hopefully answered on this blog. This is completely anonymous, you do not have to leave your real name. Urls will not be included in your question unless it pertains to the question.
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I also use a calendar (Google). I use it to plan out reviews a month or even two months ahead of time. It helps me with blog tours and requests.
I use Goodreads too. It helps.
As for my ebooks, I have the ones I plan on reading within a month on my home screen (NookColor). This way they are right in my face when I turn on my Nook. And I don’t have to hunt for them.
One thing I’ve decided to help me with my TBR pile is to stop taking review requests for the rest of the year and after I get a few blog tour books out of the way I’m not signing up for those for a while either. This will take some of the pressure off that I’ve been feeling. I’m just going to kick back and grab whatever off my shelf of bought books and enjoy the ride.
We have a very similar system for organizing those TBRs. I do a monthly post to keep track of my review books. You can see the latest one here. I don’t actually receive many unsolicited books in the mail but do accept far too many from email pitches.
I use LibraryThing for most of my organization and have a collection labeled Review. Every book I received gets added to my LibraryThing account. I also use GoodReads but only for the books that I am actively reading. I don’t have a big TBR list there.
I also use a paper calendar to plan my dates for posting reviews. While I use Google Calendars, I still prefer paper because I like the flexibility and the ability to see the whole thing at one time.
I agree that organization is the key!
Wow. You are impressively organized! I’m nowhere near that organized. Goodreads is a huge help. I also just went through all of my books and weeded out books that I wasn’t going to read again, and sold them back for credit at my local (indie) bookstore. It was a huge undertaking, but well worth it! After, I re-organized my shelves…placing books in series together, and to-read books within a more immediate proximity. Great tips! I might have to utilize some of these!
I could not function without that editorial calendar. No joke. In Goodreads, I have a TBR Physical Own list and a Review Request list. That is the best way I have at sorting them. Since I have associate reviewers, we keep a spreadsheet of review requests too, that helps us stay organized. Thanks for the great insight and advice, as always.
This is exactly how I handle my TBR list especially review books. By doing this I am ahead of the game. There are no surprises and it allows for me to mix in my own books. I also utilize this calendar for determining whether or not to accept or request an ARC as well. I try to never accept/have more then 8 review ARC’s in a given month. This way I am not over booking myself.
I use google calendar to keep track of the release date for review books. As soon as receive one, I first note it on my book releases calendar. Then I look at my Blog posting calendar and schedule it sometime around the release. Then I put the book in one more place. I have a virtual sticky note right on my desktop that I list the review books I have in order of Review posting date. I use this sticky the most, as it helps me keep on track as to what needs read. I actually explained my methods a little better here if you want to check it out. http://www.abookobsession.com/2012/02/book-blogger-confessions-1.html
I would love to be so organized. I do not use an editorial calendar because I would never populate it with the things it needs to have in it, like the release date for books.
I’ve finally started using Google Calendar but those reminders I also tend to ignore. I generally just try to keep everything in my head and that doesn’t work out so well at all.
But I totally stress about my TBR pile mostly because there are books that it makes me sad that I haven’t read. And while I hardly take on any review books anymore I still can’t manage to find the time to read every single one of them.
I am seriously jealous of your ability to organize and keep things on schedule even if you do get an overwhelming number of books. I may have to keep re-reading this post until I actually take some of the great advice.
The only calendar I use is a plugin for WordPress that shows which posts I have scheduled, but I don’t bother putting in release dates etc. My main form of organization for my TBR is my “to review” shelf on Goodreads, which I sort by publishing date so that I can read what releases next first:)
I do have a Google calender but it’s mainly for blog tour dates. I do want to organize my reviews as well. Well, I’ll do it soon. For now let me just read and procrastinate. It is summer afterall
By the way, great discussion post!
Thank-you so much for the tips, I use excel to keep track of what I have for review and I have a calendar template in excel also to keep track of when I need to have a review up. Also my to-read books are seperated from my read books and my to-read ARCs are also seperated from the rest of my to-read books.
Girl you have some serious organization skills! Thanks so much for this post, and I think the second Goodreads account is something I am going to try. That way, in addition to my Google calendar, I will already have the book information handy and that may save me tons of time when writing my reviews later!
Thanks so much for taking my question!!!
I use GoodReads to separate reviews from what I want to read. I read one classic a month so those go in my “classics” folder. Then I have a “movies” folder for the books I want to read before I see their respective movie. Of course I have my “review” folder and ashley (bookish brunette) has a folder so I know which ones I’m reviewing for her. About a week ago I made a TBR schedule so that could have them in writing as which ones were priority. I put my reason for reading it then (book club, review, etc.) then I just take a look at my list when I’m done with the book I’m currently reading. Organization is KEY for book bloggers. I only discovered that recently but luckily organization is one of my strong points. GREAT post! Love it!
I love how organized you are! It’s definitely been a work in progress for me but I feel like I am fairly put together as far as managing my TBR. Now if I could only find the time to read!
Awesome post, When I read your title on this one I jumped right over to read it! I’ve been doing pretty good keeping up lately but there for a while I was way behind so I know how it feels. I had to set me up a binder for my blog with calendars and books that have come in and contact lists. That’s how I’m keeping track.
I love all your suggestions. Like I said awesome post!!!
Great topic!
I’ve become overwhelmed myself, to the point where I stopped reading! It became a chore. I’m slowly getting back into my TBR pile. I can’t say I aim to be has organized as you cuz it sounds like a whole other job in and of its self!
I’ll be happy to get back to the place where I’m reading what I want to read, when I want to read it and talking about it when I want to talk about it.. instead of feeling this guilt and pressure.
Kudos to you! You seem to have found a way that it all works for you.
As always, I enjoy reading your posts. Keep them coming!
~ Melissa
Awesome discussion as always! I am not nearly as organized as this. My regular books are organized on my shelves by author and my review books are organized by release date and then date received. For ARCs, whether I got them from a publisher, convention, friend, etc., I always consider them to be review books because that’s what they’re made for. So I organize all unreleased titles by their release date and then pull next month’s titles from my shelf and place them in a pile so I know which books I can choose to read from. After that I pull finished copies in the order I receive them. So far it’s worked out pretty well for me!
I use goodreads to keep track of my TBR, and have it further divided into books I’ve purchased, and ones that have come into my house for review. I’ve also made it a point recently to read at least one review book AND one purchased book a week, so that I’m getting both piles down to a manageable size. It’s working well so far!
Lovely advice, Rachel. I only have one problem with review copies, I don’t wish for them to take all my reading time. It just becomes too many of them and never time to read books I’ve bought for myself Sometimes I want to read a book that I actually purchased
OMG OMG OMG! I freaking love this – I wish I had a bit more time right now to look into some of this but THIS is what I have been trying to figure out. I’m at this point in blogging where things are starting to get a little “crazy” and I have been searching and searching to find better ways to organize! My TBR isn’t quite to this point yet but its quickly getting there – I have actually stopped requesting on NetGalley until I get caught up.
I did start using a “blog planner” and it has really helped. Shocking enough for me i had to have a hard copy though. I tried keeping everything digital and it actually got me all mixed up. Having to write things out seems to help!
I hope you do more on organization, just a thought but I’m guessing there are a lot of us out there struggling (or striving) with staying on top of things!
Great post and I cannot wait to try some of this out!
Thank you so much for this post. My collection is ridiculous in a very bad way. I have over 10,000 books on my shelves with no organization or anything. I am a librarian. I should be ashamed of myself.
I use Calibre to organize my book collection both in print and electronic. It keeps everything nice and organized. I also love that there is a random book button for those occasions when you don’t know what you want to read. I also have accounts on both Goodreads and LibraryThing because it’s sometimes a good idea to have backups of your collection.
thanks for the tips, starting a GR account soley for review books is a great idea. I have a list, but I really need to be better at keeping the list maintained. Great tips, thanks for your help!
Book Savvy Babe
I don’t have nearly enough ARCs/galleys to have this problem yet (thankfully! And I’m trying to keep it that way), but I had such a blast reading this post anyway! I already do quite a few of these, but I picked up a couple handy ideas that I might implement in the future. Thanks for this post! It made my inner organizational-crazy self very happy.
Wow, I’m not nearly that organized. I have piles that are books I need to review. Right now they are stacked by month. I’m mostly getting to September releases now. But most of it is in my head or I just check my piles to see which ones I need to read soon and pick one that fits my mood. I do get overwhelmed though so better organization wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Am seriously in love with the editorial calendar now. Thanks for the tip!
My TBR list is out of control, I really need to organize myself, I think I’ll use the google calendar! I feel like social network sites never work for me. I just see other pretty books that I want to add to my list.