It’s time for my annual break down of my reading tracker posts for the year.
- Read: 10
- Bought: 4
- ARCs: 5
- Read: 5
- Bought: 1
- ARCs: 4
- Read: 12
- Bought: 3
- ARCs: 2
- Read: 10
- Bought: 0
- ARCs: 6
May:
- Read: 22
- Bought: 1
- ARCs: 1
June:
- Read: 19
- Bought: 2
- ARCs: 7
July:
- Read: 11
- Bought: 0
- ARCs: 0
- Read: 14
- Bought: 1
- ARCs: 6
- Read: 17
- Bought: 1
- ARCs: 2
- Read: 13
- Bought: 1
- ARCs: 0
- Read: 29
- Bought: 4
- ARCs: 4
- Read: 19
- Bought: 0
- ARCs: 3
Yearly Totals:
- Read: 181
- Bought: 18
- ARCs: 40
Details:
Read: I read more this year than last year I think partly because I really made an effort to prioritize books I wanted to read after having a hard reading month in February and feeling really burnt out on reading “for work” as I went through review titles. I re-read a lot and read more on audio. Re-reading has been a valuable way for me to really drill down on the books I keep in my personal library and audio books have been interesting for titles I might not have picked up otherwise or have been putting off. I’ve been trying to prioritize reading books I own–especially ones I’ve had for a while to clear my shelves. Which has already been paying off dividends as I make more space in my desk at work and on my to read shelves at home.
Bought: Books bought went down from 24 to 18. Which I’m happy about and hoping to have even fewer in 2020. If I learned anything this year, it’s that unless it’s a special edition or purchased as a signing, I do not need to buy books. I receive a ton at work and get some from my good friends as gifts. After subscribing to Uppercase for a lot of this year, I realized I don’t always like books I impulse buy and since my shelf space is so limited it doesn’t make sense to buy a ton of books. A good chunk of books I bought this year were favorites I read as ARCs and wanted to support or special copies I got at events and I feel much better about those than any random purchases. Looking ahead I’d *like* to have books bought for the year down to single digits but I’m not sure if that’s realistic.
ARCs: I received 39 ARCs this year which is down from 68 last year (plus 27 ARCs I got at BookExpo which is always hard to track in these). I was overwhelmed by blog review commitments at the start of the year so I’m happy with this change. Here’s the breakdown for the ARCs I received (I’m not sure it’s totally accurate because like 2018, I wasn’t the best at tracking #bookmail that came in):
- Requested: 12
- Amazon Vine: 10
- Not requested: 18
Requested ARCs went down from 29 to 11–partly because I request more ARCs as a librarian at my day job than as a blogger because I find School and Library Marketing requests are less competitive than blogger ones.
I requested two more titles from Amazon Vine compared to last year which isn’t a big change–it’s not a program everyone has access to but I find it really useful.
ARCs I received that I didn’t requested dropped from 32 to 18. I think that might be a clerical error on my part but oh well.
My main takeaway with ARCs is that a lot of the time I prefer reading near (or even after) release date so unless it’s a book I know a bit about and am very excited to read, I may not need to request a copy.
Basically looking ahead to 2020 my philosophy with acquiring books (either ARCs or finished copies) is going to be quality over quantity. We’ll see how that goes!
I am already stockpiling graphic novels and some other things to get ready. Who’s excited?
Miss Print 