Tuesday, October 8, 2019

My Reading Spreadsheet

I thought I'd share stuff about my reading spreadsheet today.  Yes, I have a reading spreadsheet.  Created it just this year to keep track of what I've downloaded, how much it cost me, where I got it from, and whether I actually read it.

Here's a screen capture of what it looks like:


Pink indicates books I've finished.  Blue is DNF.  Downloaded but unread is white, but you can't see it here.  I also use green for the book I'm currently reading.  That was on the hardcopy tab when I did this screen capture.  That tab also has gray rows for books I bought for research or books I bought in error (duplicates, etc.) that I don't intend on reading.  Here, I hid the title column to keep a measure of anonymity for the authors I DNF''d.  And I blanked out a couple things on the Source column that would've given away too much info - like the title of the first book in the series.

Most of my finds are from book newsletters I subscribe to.  Some are from FB groups I belong to.  If a person suggests a book or I picked up the book because I'm familiar with its author, their name would go there. :ahem, Silver:

I debated hiding the money column, but :shrug:  It is what it is.  I've spent just over $60 this year on books - 2/3rds of that on ebooks.  Pathetic amount, but things happen.  I do spent money where I need to.  The first book on the sheet there was $4.99 - a book 2 I really wanted bad.  So, I'm not a total Scrooge.  And I try to review the free books to help the authors sell more, so there's that. 

I probably should've filled in the dates of the books I read so I can keep track of how long it takes me to read a book after I've downloaded it.  Maybe next year.

So, as you can see, I've picked up 139 new books this year - 90 of which are ebooks.  I've finished reading 92 books so far.  I've DNF'd 42 books - 33 ebooks and 9 hardcopy.  And I have 7 unread new ebooks on my Kindle.  (Unread hardcopies?  Let's not be silly counting those, k?)

Yeah, this is probably way more information than any general reader wants to know or cares about.  I started this because figuring out how much money I'm spending on books at the end of each year was a total pain in the ass - going through receipts and trying to remember if I got a receipt and well, bleh.  It also helps me figure out which marketing sources are a better bang for my advertising buck.  If I'm not finding anything good on a newsletter, then I have to wonder how effective it is for selling my own books.  The same with figuring out if I'm consistently DNFing books from a particular source.  If readers aren't getting what they need from a source, they'll stop using that source, which makes them ineffective for my marketing purposes.  There are several sources I won't advertise with anymore based on this data.

I'll probably do a year-end wrap up of all of this data, but I thought this was a good time to look at it all.  Only 12 weeks left of the year, folks.  And I'm so ready for 2020 to start.

Do you keep track of how many books you read?  Do any of you keep track of anything else about your reading?  Or am I the only weird one?


3 comments:

  1. You've got me curious now. I'm so seldom on Pinterest anymore. Or any other social platform. I know I have a board for books (mine) and another for books I've liked/recommend but it's OLD! Hope you enjoyed whichever title it was.

    And yah, your method is a little...intense for me. I do Good Reads to keep track of what I've read. When I was looking for something new to read this week, I found a book on one of the emails I get--or maybe one of the book blogs. Anyway, I thought, Ooh, sounds promising. Checked it out on GR. Not only had I read it but I only gave it 3 stars. I went back to looking for something else to read. 🤷 Luckily, I ususally buy from Amazon/Audible and it shows I own the book when I click on the buy page. I do admire your tenacity, though, and kudos for using it as a market tracking tool. See? You're so much more organized that I am!

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    1. It was Fairy Tales Can Come True. Somehow or other, I'd totally missed that one, so when I saw it on Pinterest, I clicked over to buy it.

      LOL, yeah, this is what comes from having too much time on my hands from not writing.

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  2. You are MUCH more organized than I'll ever be. I read it (or DNF it) and pass it on to my mom or back to the bookstore. I usually forget to review even the ones I like best, much less keep track of them. Soooo flaky these days.

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