Tackling #MountTBR – NA (NetGalleyholics Anonymous) @NetGalley #NetGalley

Hello, my name is Julia and I am a NetGalleyholic: Noun A bookworm addicted to requesting books from NetGalley. It has been one day since my last request…

(Tell Me A Secret by Samantha Hayes in case you were wondering).

I have been very fortunate to receive some amazing books from publishers to review before publication day and I am grateful for each and every one. However, I got a bit carried away when I first joined NetGalley and still now have a spectacular backlog. Having touched on this with Janel @ Keeper of Pages, I thought I’d write a post about how I’m tackling this. (Y’know, not that I’m procrastinating and not reading the bloody books or anything…)

During the last (almost) two years I have been approved to read 191 (at time of writing) ARCs. I have reviewed (or given feedback if the book was not for me) 123 of them. I was both chuffed and proud when I got my 100 reviews badge. According to my NetGalley profile, therefore, I still have 68 currently outstanding.

So, how am I going to tackl- Hang on, what?

Actually, now I’m panicking. 68? Why then are there only 67 NetGalley books on my “Book review TBR spreadsheet”?! Yes, I have a spreadsheet; I am a #booknerd. A colour-coded spreadsheet in fact. Look, a snippet:

Whenever I receive a book, I add it to The Spreadsheet, entering the title, source (NetGalley, Blog Tour organiser, Author, other), date to be read by (publication date or Blog Tour stop), the Kindle locations (so I can judge how long I’ll need to read it – roughly one hour per 1000 locations) and the synopsis.

A red row means the publication date has passed (sorry!), a light green one means the date is yet to come, dark green is a priority read (personal preference) and purple is for Blog Tours.

(Aha! Mystery solved: the 68th book is one for which a publisher sent an email offering a place on a Blog Tour; I clicked for more info about the book; and it took me straight to a NetGalley approval page and added the book to my “Start reading” shelf to be downloaded! I don’t even know what it’s about yet!)

I realise that this has all got a bit #FirstWorldBookwormProblems, but it’s just a bit of fun 🙂

So, how I’m tackling it:

#1 – Organisation: (Did you see the spreadsheet?!) I’m chaotic in many ways, but I love a list.

#2 – Ruthless culling: A little while ago I managed to streamline my NetGalley “Give Feedback” shelf a bit. I looked at the existing reviews for all the books I had to read and for any where the feedback was not so good or said ‘this book was meant to be X but it was actually Y’, or similar, I said thanks but no thanks in my feedback to the publisher and cleared it from my shelf. That only removed a handful but it was a start.

#3 – Resisting temptation: I have also seriously cut down on the number of books I request. From being like a kid in a sweet shop at first (or, to be fair, like me in a sweet shop) clicking on everything that took my fancy, I have limited myself to favourite authors or books that hit my reading sweet spot. #HonestlyNotObsessedWithSweets

I still feel really behind though. In April, I actually managed to keep up with and finish any book that was scheduled for release or a Blog Tour but, come to May and not only did every book ever seem to be coming out in May, but six (SIX!), including a Goodreads giveaway win, were coming on out 3 May. Why? Plus a seventh on 2 May. I managed to read the latter and two of the former in time but I have not yet read the rest. Which leads me to…

#4 – Chilling out: Even if I miss a publication day, I hope that it doesn’t matter. If I get to the book eventually, surely it’s just as positive to be shouting about a book after the initial fuss and publicity has died down and perhaps appealing to someone who ‘didn’t trust the hype’ and may have forgotten about the book in the meantime? I hope so anyway, because I still have 34 NetGalley books on my TBR from before 2018 and 14 from earlier this year. (Not to mention the three that are due out today…)

I have yet to try #5 – Cold turkey, because a) I love reading and b) I also have chronic FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)…it’s a sickness!

So, that is my NetGalley plan for now. Next time I’ll be trying to tackle my own Paperback and Hardback #MountTBRs.

Agh, even now I can’t stop obsessively clicking the little green logo on my browser Favourites…just in case an amazing new book has been added to the Mystery & Thrillers category in the last 20 seconds!

Save me…!

Thank you for reading and please feel free to share any tips below. x