How I Use Goodreads to Track My Reading
There are many book trackers out there both online and in paper form, but my favorite is Goodreads, which I’ve been using for over 10 years now. (What?! I can’t believe it’s been that long!) Everyone has their own opinion on the pros and cons of various platforms and tracking systems, and I’ve been really happy with what I can do with Goodreads. In this post, I will show you how I use Goodreads to track my reading, and how I believe it helps me stay on track with my reading goals.
What Is Goodreads?
Goodreads is a website where you can track books you’ve read or want to read. You can keep track of the date read, personal reviews, and also rank the book out of 5 stars. Each book page gives a summary, a site-wide star ranking (average among all users), and links to purchase the book from Amazon or borrow the book from a library. Author pages show you all the books an author has written.
Goodreads is also a sort of social media platform for readers. You can add your friends, see what each other is reading, and even form virtual book club groups.
My Shelves
By default, Goodreads sets you up with 3 shelves when you first make an account: Read, To Read, and Currently Reading. These pre-set shelves are exclusive; a book can only be on one shelf at a time. I have also added two additional exclusive shelves: Abandoned (for books that I thoroughly disliked or couldn’t get in to and have no interest in finishing) and Never Finished (for books that I desire to finish eventually but put down for one reason or another).
My Tags
You can also make shelves NOT exclusive, and to avoid confusion, I like to call these types of shelves “tags.” Tags (or inclusive shelves), unlike exclusive shelves, allow you to put a book on multiple shelves; i.e., you can have a book with multiple tags on it. Tags are great for categorizing your books in ways that you might want to refer to later. I typically tag my books by genre, because that’s what I’m interested in looking back on later. I also have a favorites tag, recommendations tag, and book club ideas tag. Other tag ideas might be classics, graphic novels, female authors, set in outer space, or any other category you’d like to track.
My Rating System
Goodreads uses a 5-star ranking system. I personally use their description of their ranking system, which you can see when you hover over the stars. According to this system, this is what each star means:
5 stars – I loved it! / It was amazing!
4 stars – I really liked it!
3 stars – I liked it.
2 stars – It was okay.
1 star – I didn’t like it.
It may make my rankings look rather harsh because I do give a lot of 3-star reviews. I also really reserve 5 stars to my favorites or books I’d recommend.
My Reading Goals
Goodreads has a built-in yearly reading goal program. You set the number of books you want to read in a year and then it tracks it for you as you log your reading. I have typically set 12-15 books per year for the past 5 years or so, to average about one book per month. This year I really want to read more, but I’ve kept my 15 book reading goal and am already at 9 books!
How I Track on a Daily Basis
Most days at the end of my last reading session, I’ll log the page number (or percentage of the book, if it’s an audio or ebook) in Goodreads. I’ve found personally that logging as I go along (rather than just logging that I’ve read the book when I’m done) keeps me motivated to keep reading.
I hope this rundown of how I use Goodreads to track my reading was helpful to you and that you give it a try in the future! If you are looking for more things to improve your bookish life, check out my shop for stamps, stickers, and more!
