I need advice. I am feeling a little unprepared.
Do you keep a list of the books you want/need to review? Do you keep it in order of review dates/publication dates or dates received?
My list is just broken into categories – received from authors, received from publishers, NetGalley and my own copies.
I need to rework my list . . . how does your list look?
I used to have several lists, but it was just too hard to manage. I streamlined to a new system a few months ago that's working well.
ReplyDeleteI use a day planner that has a monthly view with the dates in blocks and a long column on the right side where you take notes. In that column, I list all of the books I get from publishers, authors, NetGalley, etc. that are going to be released that month, with the release date in a different color ink so it stands out. I use another color ink to designate where they came from (A for author, NG for NetGalley, etc.).
If there's a priority, I'll put an asterisk or number next to it. Because I'm using it all on a monthly calendar and I can see the release dates, I can pencil in when I need to have the reviews done by.
I get too overwhelmed when I try to have a master list in front of me of everything I've taken in. I need to have it broken down by month of release because my policy is not to do reviews until close to release date anyway.
If it's something someone's sent me that's already been released, it just gets added to the monthly list with it's original release date next to it and a note with the date it was sent.
This is the planner system I use
Thank you Barbara - I agree with Shelagh, your system sounds like a winner. I am going to play around with it a little and see if it will work for me. Will let you know if I find other helpful ideas :)
ReplyDeleteI don't use lists, I use calendars. When a book comes in for review I schedule the date the review should post on the calendar. Then, I refer to the calendar to see which book I should be reading next. I use an online calendar that both my blog partner and I can access (keepandshare.com). I save emails in a folder in my inbox that has specific details I need to reference for each book, like who to send links to, which disclosure to put at the end of the review, etc.
ReplyDeleteI use a mixture of my Google calender and a small notebook that I take with me that also doubles as the place where I right down thoughts I had about books to make reviews easier and also where I put any ideas I have. YAY ORGANIZATION!
ReplyDeleteI used to just make lists in notebooks, but that was next to useless to me - it didn't contain all the info I wanted and I'd keep losing track of the lists and making new ones. I also used Goodreads, but it could also get a bit chaotic and I wanted something in hardcopy.
ReplyDeleteSo I bought a Moleskine book journal and a weekly diary to keep track of everything. The book journal has tabbed, alphabetised sections for recording info about the book and a customisable index so I can list all the books there and look them up easily. In the index I also tick off the books I've read and highlight the ones I've reviewed for easy reference.
In the weekly diary I record publication dates, and try and plan my reading and reviewing accordingly. I make a reading and writing to-do list for the week and use the yearly planner in the diary to an overview of publication dates. It's working well so far, and it plays nicely into my Moleskine fetish :D