Hello friends! With September winding down, I wanted to wrap up everything I did for #Goodreadance2020. This challenge was hosted by the wonderful Shealea (Shut Up, Shealea) and it honestly came at such a perfect time because I've been seeing so many posts about how nicely everyone organizes their bookish archives.
☐ Create excel sheets
☐ Make some Goodreads shelves
☐ Clean up my Goodreads TBR and ratings
☐ Set up a 1-10 rating scale
r e s u l t s
- Excel sheets -
books I read in 2020
My categories:
Month + Number of Book/Year
Pretty standard start, I didn't want to keep track of dates read since I already of Goodreads for that so I kept it simple with just numbering.
Book Information: Title, Author
Again, pretty standard information.
General Information: Series, Age, Genre, Star Rating,
Numerical Rating, Edition, Source, Review, Reread Count
Like the title suggests, general information about the book along with whether it's a reread or not (since I want to do more rereading) and where I end up reviewing the book if I do.
Diversity: Yes/No, Main Representation, LGBTQIA+
This is not a complete list of categories for diversity but it's a start. Being more on Book Twitter has definitely made me more passionate about diverse reads so of course it's something I want to track!
Reactions: Writing, Atmosphere, World Building, Plot, Characters, Emotion, Average
This is my personal favorite part of the spreadsheet. There are a lot of instances where I read a book and give a 3-3.5 star rating but ultimately forget how I feel about various aspects of the story. I thought I'd try and set up a 1-10 scale for these specifics which would also help with the reviewing process. Surprisingly, when going back and comparing the averages to my normal 5-star scale, they are actually really well aligned so that was cool to see.
physical books that I own
This was actually the most time-consuming part because I had to go through and document all the little specifics. It was also really helpful to see what books I've had for a long time that I just haven't picked up and won't be in the near future or books that I read and didn't love. I finished the spreadsheet with 154 books which is a lot higher of a number than I anticipated. However, I did end up choosing 20-30 books that I decided to donate. I don't plan on buying any more books for the rest of the year other than my pre-orders so counting those in I'll end 2020 with 129 books.
My categories:
Title, Author, Series Name
(sorry that got cut off)
Publication Year, Pages, Publisher
This definitely took the longest because I tried to fill in all the information.
Age, Genre
Age: Children (C), Middle Grade (MG), YA (Young Adult), NA (New Adult), A (Adult
Genre: fantasy, contemporary, historical fiction, dystopian, literary, retelling, magical realism, fabulism, non-fiction, poetry, short story, graphic novel, class, romance, mystery/thriller, horror
(again not a complete list)
Read, Star Rating, Numerical Rating
This was actually helpful to see how many unread books I owned >_<
Edition, Source, Read Count
Edition - paperback or hardback
Source - where I bought the book
Read Count - whether I have reread the book or not
Shading
If you can tell from the screenshot, there are several titles that are shaded green and blue. The blue indicates some of my all-time favorites. The green indicates a book that I will potentially unhaul in the near future. This includes books I haven't read that I could be losing interest in as well as books I read that didn't blow me away - both of which I've decided to hold onto for the time being.
I did attempt to start a sheet for e-books that I owned but I haven't gone through all of them yet. The set-up is similar to my physical books but I took some of the categories so it isn't as in-depth.
- Goodreads -
I started off with just the standard shelves that Goodreads offered (read, currently-reading, to-read) so I added a couple more. My personal favorite is the slightly-disappointed shelf - I found that there were a lot of books that just left me feeling unsatisfied and for some reason, having a place to keep all those titles made me happy (?)
I also changed my display shelf to feature books that have some of my favorite characters and/or character relationships.
The best part of my Goodreads cleanse was honestly changing the ratings. When I first started blogging, I would agree to pretty much every review request I received, regardless of interest level. As a result, I would feel pressured to give the books a 3+ rating even if they didn't quite fit that criterion.
Now that my rating system is more in place, it was pretty easy to go in and change the ratings to fit the current standard. Looking at all the books I read from 2015-2018, there were a lot of books that I have honestly forgotten about but rated a 3/4 star rating. While it was a bit scary to see my average drop from a 3.68 to a 3.30, it was also so liberating to see my ratings accurately reflect how I felt about these books.
To wrap things up, I loved participating in this challenge! It helped me orient my priorities when it comes to the books that I owned as well as clarify how to organize the books I read. An added plus is how satisfying the spreadsheets look once they were all filled out!
Shealea honestly comes up with the best ideas and if you participated in #Goodreadance2020, I'd love to know what you did and what accomplishment was your favorite?
4 Comments
Wow, this seems like such an in-depth way to organize your goodreads shelves. Good for you, Riv! I should probably get around to doing that myself. I totally relate to rating books a lot differently now than I did years ago.
ReplyDeleteThank you Emily!! It was a lot of fun, if you do make some spreadsheets I'd love to know your categories and organization method! :)
DeleteIf I were your mom, I would be so proud. This is by far the most in-depth #goodreadance post I've read. Congratulations on a job well done, Riv!
ReplyDeleteYani at Litfae ♡
Aww Yani 💕 you're so sweet!! It was definitely really fun organizing everything and I've been loving just seeing everyone's results!
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