-originally written on April 23, 2023; edited on May 13, 2023-
As of May 13, 2023, I have 5,522 ebooks. What. What is that? I remember having a mere 3000, and I thought that was crazy. I have a TikTok video from August of last year, where I said I was at 4,079 ebooks.
So yeah, what? And that’s my ebooks. That also doesn’t include my physical books, which come nowhere near that amount. The fact that I’m coming up on 6000 books in total, and I don’t even know what most of them are?!
There is one thing to blame, and that is BookBub.
Okay, lies, it’s me. It’s always been me and always will be.
I have talked about Bookbub before and how much I love it. And a great majority of my books indeed come from that, or at least, I was made aware of the books and then went to Amazon to purchase them. I don’t even know if my Kindle would be able to hold them all if they were downloaded. I have a 32gb kindle, but I usually only download what I’m going to read and then remove them from the downloads. I’m probably over the “download” amount by this point. Oh well, it’s not going to hurt me.
But see, that’s the problem. I have so many books, and I add to them DAILY (an addiction? Yes. A problem? Most definitely). At such a fast rate, it makes it hard to keep track of the book titles, what they’re about, and why I even got them in the first place. Between you and me, I both recommend and don’t recommend this practice.
While I love the ease that technology has allowed me to have in purchasing and acquiring free and discounted books (as well as the regular-price books that I’ve paid for), I got tired of not knowing what I have in my collection.
So I turned to Google Sheets, with the creation of a spreadsheet that has become so hard to update. I could try a different system, but unless there were two of me updating it, or at least another me to take it over completely, even updating my list is hard.
Before I talk about how I’m going to tackle this monstrous list (I quite literally have become a dragon with a bookhoard. Too bad I don’t also have a hoard of gold to pay for the books), let’s go into what I keep track of on my spreadsheet.
How I organize my spreadsheet
I organize the books by the author’s last name. That way, it’s easier to manage when it comes to book series. I also keep track of if I have an ebook version or physical version, what the rating was I gave on Goodreads (my main review platform) if I didn’t read it and therefore deleted it.
Here are the categories I keep tabs of in the spreadsheet:
- books are organized first by author’s last name, and then by book title (sometimes by series order, but not always)
- Whether it is an ebook or a physical copy
- what was the rating I gave for it on Goodreads
- If I didn’t read it, didn’t review it, and therefore deleted it
- If I didn’t finish it, didn’t review, and deleted it
- Did finish and am not keeping it (so delete)
- Did finish and will be keeping it
Those last items are super crucial, and are the whole reason for creating the spreadsheet and embarking on this ridiculous amount of books to read.
Why?
Because there are books that I absolutely know I haven’t liked and that I deleted, but then I see them on BookBub, and I kind of recognize them, but don’t remember why I got rid of them. And since up until now, I haven’t kept track of the whys ( and I still won’t really keep track of the details), I at least want to give myself record that I meant to delete the books on purpose from my collection.
Will it take me years? Honestly, I’m not holding my breath on the completion of this project. First of all, it’s not a project with a deadline, and with the rate that I add books (again, daily), it is nigh on impossible. But at least I will be able to make a dent in it, and start actually reading books again.
Now, sort of, the fun part.
Because I have the books on a list, and I do update the above-mentioned list when I have time, I use a random number generator to choose what I will be reading that month. I only choose a small handful, no more than 5 (and depending on what else I am planning on reading, it’s probably closer to 3), and the only times I reshuffle for a number are when the number points to a book that is part of a series that I haven’t started reading, so I can either read the first of that series or reshuffle for a new option.
So there you have it. The hows and whys.
I would love to know if there is a community around, a support community that is available for those who are addicted more to the acquiring of books rather than to the reading of said books. It would be nice to have everyone sit together in a circle (or appear together in a Zoom call) and just cry together as we share how many books we’ve acquired since the last meeting. Oh goodness, it could be either really helpful or really harmful.
Actually, seeing that I am on this side of the mountain of books (having made a minimal dent in it), I am a bit terrified when I imagine Amazon going under and all of my books, poof, gone. While there would be a lot that I would probably actually be glad to see go (hence the delete items on my spreadsheet list), there are others, including a growing cookbook collection, that I would be devastated to lose. Technology and companies. A double-edged sword.
As a side note for the cookbooks, of which I have many.
I did add those to my master booklist, and when I get to those, I will read them, and also make at least one recipe from the book. Just to show that I did, in fact, take the time to read it properly. But also, I just love the pictures, because it showcases food and culture and whatever else the author decides to add.
Comment below and let me know what books you like to add to your collection? Have you used BookBub before? What are your favorite ways of acquiring books?
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