Tackling The TBR: A Survivor's Story!

As you know, I've been doing a self planned TBR challenge on my blog, along with Sarah from http://allthebookblognamesaretaken.blogspot.com/ in a bid to wrestle control back of our dreaded TBRs. I see people asking for tips on how to reduce their own without depriving themselves of books they really want to read. The 'simple' answer is buy less, read more. It's the only way to stop the damage. But how do we deal with the books we already have on our TBR? Let me share a few of the tricks that I try.

SECTION ONE-LIMIT THE ADDITIONS

1) The Winter Break
During the winter when the postal service can be at it's most unreliable because of Christmas packages being sent, I stop buying from Amazon so I don't need to worry about lost and delayed packages. From December 1st to around January 6th, I don't buy anything. It gives me a nice 5 weeks of reading where every book comes off the pile. When it got to January this year I was so used to not buying that I mostly bought books in series I was continuing with and it got me into a reduced buying mentality for the year ahead. An imposed short ban can be done any time of year that suits you.

2) Book Buy Ban! 
I've never found this to work. It's one thing to do the temporary winter break when you know when it will end, but to actually do the 'I'm not buying a book until I read 50 more' or whatever way you declare it takes willpower of a type I've never had! When I tried this various times, I'd last a month and then I'd go on a massive book buying binge and get more books in one week than I would've bought in that month!  You could try something smaller scale like read 10 buy 1 or something similar which is more realistic and reduces the pile by 9 each time.

3) Samples
Amazon is a good source for this option. You can generally download a free sample of most books and that way you can see what the writing style is like, get an initial idea of what the MC and plot are going to be like without committing to buying. You can get through quite a few samples in one day! Those that didn't grab you are deleted from the ereader and that is one less book making it to your tbr. You will find a few you want to buy but it does reduce the grabbing of a pile of books, reducing the TBR damage.

4) Don't play 'Grab The Freebie'    
I was guilty of this for YEARS! Oh look it's a free urban fantasy book MUST DOWNLOAD! Yes we've all been there haven't we! Instead of just grabbing, take the time to go to Goodreads or wherever and check out the reviews. If the book is full of tropes or scenarios you hate then you are unlikely to love it so devote your time to something else. There are lots of UF books with good plots that I decided to ignore when I saw there were love triangles. Yes I may miss out on the odd great book but I'll find others to love elsewhere! It also does the author a favour in avoiding a DNF and 2 star review from you! 

5) Go easy on Netgalley 
Personally I don't use Netgalley or anything similar as I don't really want to read ARCs or have deadlines anymore for my reviews. All I can say is don't grab everything just because of the hype around the books. Take the time to research, choose only the amount of books you could handle if they all came at once, and pick out what you really can't wait to read now. Set limits and keep up your review percentage. 

SECTION TWO-REDUCE THE PILE 

1) The Short Read Blitz
If you want to kickstart a reduction in your TBR, set a target to read all the books you have under 50 pages then 100 pages. You can rattle through a lot of prequels and short stories and novellas, get a few done in one night and see a quick reduction in your numbers which will instantly motivate you. Then you can move the target to books between 100-150 pages and get more out of your way. It gives you a good start to a Goodreads Challenge too! Get rid of your manga and graphic novels in the same way. You can adjust your Goodreads settings to show the page numbers for most books so you can get a list ready to read.

2) Read The Reviews
I went over to Goodreads where I have all the ebooks and physical books I own. I started going through each one, checking out the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon to see what people said about the book. I paid particular attention to the lower star reviews as they tend to have more useful information on them. If readers complains that there is too much action and gore, I'll be interested in reading it but if readers complains that the MC is whiny, there is a love triangle and the book is slow, I'll delete it without reading. I look for info about tropes and scenarios I hate and MCs nobody likes. Low star reviews are so helpful in reducing the pile so you have so make use of them!

3) Do I still want to read this?
It's amazing how our tastes can change over the years so if some of those pesky books have been lurking for a long time, it might be time to ask why they are being neglected. Have a good think about whether you still want to read the book. I got tired of relationship angst tropes in YA a few years back and it led to an ereader clearout!  You might feel less enthusiastic about a genre, be tired of emotional topics, fed up with an author etc so you can maybe let them go and delete them. Remember you can't read all the books!

4) Go back in time 
I still have unread books I bought back in 2010 and 2011. Find the books that have been lurking the longest on your TBR and decide which you still want to read and ditch the rest. If it has been sitting that long for no good reason, ditch them!

5) Read your favourites 
If you have favourite series that have recently finished or a new book in that series has just been published, read it! If you have unread books by authors you love, make them priority too! If you focus on stuff you expect to love, you 'should' be able to rattle through these quicker and reduce the pile a bit.

6) First Book Fever 
I was mass buying full Indie series, especially apocalypse books, before reading the first one. (Indie books can quickly become unavailable or overpriced, so I had to buy the lot to ensure I got them all) I now look at the series where I bought most or all the series and read book one in each. Based on book one I decide if it was good enough to read the next one. If I loved it or it had real potential, I start book two. If it was meh, I ditch the series. 

Ask yourself this, did you think of book one 'it was ok but I'll give book two a try to see if it gets better?' After book two, are you thinking 'not much difference from book one, but the series might improve eventually'? OK so where do you draw the line and decide that the series is going nowhere? Are you planning to read 10 or 15 books in the series and still be hoping it gets better? For me, if book one isn't great, that is usually it for me. If I'm not sure I start book two and give it 100 pages. If there is no improvement, it's over for the series. Set your own rules but don't struggle on with dead end series.

7) DNF is your friend!
I'm lucky to have the mentality of being able to DNF as soon as I've had enough of a book. Sometimes I can tell in the opening chapters that it isn't going to be for me, sometimes I can get close to halfway. My golden rule is, as soon as I'm bored, goodbye book! I have too many to get through to waste days or weeks on things I'm not enjoying! Ditch it, move on! It might not be easy for everyone to do this, but it does reduce the pile quicker.

8) Re-read
It might be worthwhile re-reading a few. Sounds counterproductive yeah? Well, I went back to 6 series where I gave book one 3 stars a long time back but wasn't blown away by it. I had unread books in each series to tackle but when I did the re-read, I was less impressed by these 6 books second time around and chose NOT to continue each series. That saved me time in the long run by not having to read piles of sequels, and deleting reduced my numbers. 

9) Poor quality sucks! 
Avoid poor quality PDFs! It takes DOUBLE  or TRIPLE the time to read the buggers when the printing is tiny and faint, and frankly if the author can't send me decent quality files, why should I waste my time reading it? If I receive something sub-standard I don't waste time on it and it gets deleted. If the formatting is really bad I might delete without reading or there are piles of poor grammar and punctuation on every page. The odd error is fine but not hundreds of mistakes.

10) Make it easy on your peepers!
Grab those bigger print paperbacks from your shelf as these can be read much faster than a page with very small print. You turn the pages faster and feel as if you are reading the book quicker even if that is actually an illusion!  

11) Readathons and Monthly Reading Challenges
Taking part in a 7 or 10 day readathon can improve your productivity and get a few extra books off the TBR that week. If you love a genre of books and see a month long challenge to read that genre, join in as it might get a few more off your total by keeping you motivated through the month.

12) Reading Lists 
Monthly reading challenges were fun to plan but I rarely did great on them. Now I'm doing seasonal reading challenges. For summer I started midway through June and picked 66 books to read by the end of August and it kept me more motivated this summer than I expected! It looks like I'll get most if not all of them done. I'm doing a new challenge where from September 1st to December 31st I've set aside 100 books across different genres and I'll read as many as I can to finish the year with a bang. Pick a wide range of books to suit all reading moods you might have, pick a target that is big and don't worry about getting it all done. Be flexible about changing the books on the list-it's getting more reading done that counts! The idea is to stay motivated to read as many as you can! 

Tips on reducing freebies/bargains you add to tbr: Ask yourself:
-do you REALLY REALLY want to read it or are you taking it just because it is free?
-is it from a genre you totally love or just a genre you wish you loved but never have?
-are you only downloading it because of the hype?
-does it have those things you hate in plot and character according to reviews?
-if you read it, will you need to buy lots of small novellas at inflated prices to read whole thing?
-is it by an author whose other books weren't great for you?
-does it sound GREAT or 'ok for a freebie'?
-does this sound the same plot as another 50 books I've got on tbr? 
-have the previous books in the series been a bit blah?

If in doubt, STEP AWAY FROM THE BOOKY! 

Good luck with your pile reduction!