My GoodReads Stats Suck & Here’s How I’m Going to Fix Them

Earlier this year, I lost my head. While working on deadline to finish Book3, and then to complete edits and revisions, I signed up for the Goodreads Reading Challenge. I pledged to read 50 books by the end of the year. You can see from the screenshot here, I am failing miserably.

 

Literary Social Network

Goodreads, for those who may not know, is a website/social network for bookworms and book recommendations. A reader can access information for up to 2.3 billion books. The website has 80 million users. Anyone can write a review or enter a rating of between 1-5 stars for a book he/she has read. Reader/users are encouraged to check books as either “read” or “currently reading” or “want to read.”  It has been described as “a sprawling literary social network, equal parts Facebook, Yelp and Reddit.”

The Pledge

Every year Goodreads invites its members/users to pledge to read a number of books. (Which is not only an amazing way to encourage reading — but also drums up business for its parent company, Amazon.)

As of the end of this week, Goodreads shows that I have read only 56% of the books I have pledged to read — and there’s only 17 days of the year left. The situation, however, is not as bleak as it looks but Goodreads doesn’t know that.

Goodreads Incentives

So, from time to time it will send me an email with an incentive. For example, directing me to view which of my Goodreads “friends” has surpassed his/her number of pledged books. Or it will email a helpful suggestion of what to read next.

 

Kindle Library

I don’t need either an incentive to read (when I am not writing, or playing tennis, that’s all I do.) Nor do I need any helpful suggestions of what to read next. I have 72 books on my “want to read” shelf. And, I really, really want to read them. Dozens of those are actually already in my Kindle Library just waiting to be opened.  And, I add new ones almost daily depending on Bookbub deals.

Not As Bad As It Looks

40 Books not 28

Anyway, I have read more than 28 books as of last count. The screenshot above shows the 12 additional books I have read, but which I have not yet added to my “read” list because I have not had the time to write a review for them. (There is a thirteenth (The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarity) — not shown because it didn’t fit in the screenshot.)

Reading is the easy part. For example, two of the above books I devoured in virtually one sitting. I started reading When Breath Becomes Air on a Saturday night, and was still reading it at 5a.m. on Sunday morning. Louise Doughty’s 2013 bestseller, Apple Tree Yard was also mostly a one-sitting read (on a flight from Florida to New York with a “perfect” one-hour delay!) But the reviews must be written.

Goodreads does not require a review to count the book as read, but I feel authors depend on reviews and you shouldn’t chalk up another book towards completing your challenge if you deprive the author of your review.

Reviews TK (Promise)

I do not anticipate a problem with reading another nine books before the end of the year. I’m going to take my pick from the books in the screenshot (shown below.) They are all queued up in my Kindle.

Nice Change of Pace

Nor do I really feel pressured by the thought of writing reviews for all the books I’ve finished for the Reading Challenge. Sometimes a couple of lines is enough. The book’s blurb is usually included on its Goodreads page, and I often feel that reviewers who simply regurgitate the plot basics in their reviews are missing the point.

Anyway, it’s a really nice change of pace to be assessing another author’s work rather than sweating over one’s own.

Give me a couple of weeks, then, if you like, you can access my Goodreads Author Page here to see if I succeeded in reading — and reviewing– the 50 books I pledged to read. I’m curious myself!