Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the seventeenth day of the month is "Method."
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A while back, Stephany wrote up a post about how she tracks books once she's finished reading them. She keeps track of books on her blog, Goodreads, and a spreadsheet. I am in awe of her organizational skills.
Things are not so organized around here. I mean, I try to be organized, but sometimes it's just about muddling along. Here's what an ideal version of my method would look like:
1) Finish a book.
2) Update my monthly book list on my blog with the title, author, day I finished, year it was published, how I got the book (library, own it, etc.), brief one or two sentence summary/feelings, and my star rating.
3) Update my spreadsheet with much of the same information, plus some other data like number of pages, who recommended it to me, genre, and other stuff Stephany recommended.
4) Update any other blog lists that the book might be part of. As many of you know, that might be a list I'm keeping for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge I do every year, Reddit's top fantasy books by women, or the Women's Prize for Fiction winners.
5) Write up an in-depth blog post about the book if I determine I might later want to refer to something other than the one to two sentence summary.
Here's what usually happens.
1) Finish a book.
2) Update monthly book list for my blog with just title and author.
3) Realize a week later that I haven't done any other updates and frantically try to update my spreadsheet.
Insert some idiom about best intentions and road paving.
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To see what Bestest Friend has to say about method, go visit her at Too Legit to Quit.
Yes, but you do write in-depth blog posts about a lot of the books you read, which is impressive. i agree that Stephany has the most organized system I've ever heard of.
ReplyDeleteI dream of having Stephany's level of organization about anything in my life.
DeleteHa - I love these comments so much! Organization is my love language, I suppose!
DeleteMy only system is that I have no system so kudos to you and Stephany!
ReplyDeleteWell, it's only a system if you use it. Ha.
DeleteYears ago, I tried using Goodreads to track what I read, but at the time, they didn't allow tracking of re-reads, which was an instant no from me. (And this is why my Goodreads account says I've been reading the same book for many years.) I created an Excel spreadsheet that I use for my own tracking. I make a new tab for each year, and track title, author, date I read it, and a few categories (I've added some over the years): if it's a first-time or re-read, from the library, if it's sci-fi/fantasy (I read a lot of that, and wanted to be able to see how much of my total), if it's YA/YR, if I read it electronically, if it's nonfiction. Nothing fancy but it works for me.
ReplyDeleteI think the lack of half stars and its weirdness of tracking rereads turns people off from Goodreads. I think The StoryGraph fixes both of those issues, but if you have a spreadsheet form that works for you, I wouldn't bother importing all that data into another source!
DeleteYour reviews are so detailed! I note mine in a spreadsheet with the date. Only this year I started rating the books. I put them on IG and my blog but not in a detailed way, and so I will look back and vaguely remember the cover but not remember anything about the book itself. I think I might try to use Goodreads in the New Year. Oh wait, now I see CCR says no tracking of re-reads, and I often re-read, so maybe not.
ReplyDeleteI only starting rating books this year, too. I've mostly just tracked what I've read with a sentence or two. I do like writing up longer reviews, but it is quite time consuming, so I don't do it for everything. I think The StoryGraph does allow for you to track rereads (I think) and it allows half stars, so some people like it better than GR. Since I put most things on my blog, I don't keep up with my own GR account.
DeleteI love your reviews -- mini and long. And like Nicole said, they are so detailed! All the words you looked up, quotes that you pulled out, research you did on the subject. I am so impressed. When I get around to reviewing a month of books (and I read far fewer than you do), I sometimes have to cast about deep in my memory for thoughts on the book. The best I can do is mark it off in Goodreads. So I would say you are QUITE well organized, even if it doesn't feel that way.
ReplyDeleteWell, if it seems as if I am organized, than I have everyone fooled! Yay for me!
DeleteI think you're doing pretty well. My policy on intentions like this is that if you do some of what you intended you're better off than if you never had the lofty intentions at all. Although ideally it would be better to have all that information recorded, you do have some information recorded. The posts I've read of yours with your book review, both month round-ups and the more in-depth reviews have been helpful to me, so kudos.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad my reviews help! That's incentive to keep going.
DeleteMy system is to put the books in Goodreads and maybe write a few review sentences (when I feel up for it). I used to do a "What I read" post on my blog but I've been reading the Outlander series for over a year and have no other books to show for... LOL
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that you do book roundups here on your blog and keep a spreadsheet is more organization than most of us have.
I'm always impressed with your book reviews and how many quotes you save and the research you do while reading! That's something I just don't do while I'm reading, which is why I'm trying to be better about reviewing the book very soon after finishing it when everything is still fresh in my mind.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shoutout!