Goals

My 2018 Bookish Goals

Ali@abookishlife35 Comments

2017 is almost over and while I’ve had an incredible bookish year I’ve already started thinking about what I want to achieve in 2018. I tend to avoid New Year’s Resolutions as I know I’ll never stick to them but last year I set some reading and blog goals and actually met a lot of them so I want to do the same for 2018.

I’m probably not going to beat myself up over them if I don’t achieve them, reading and blogging should be fun after all, but I’m hoping these goals will give me a little bit of motivation and kick start the year.

Reading Goals

Last year my overall aim was to diversify and expand my reading and I want to continue with that in 2018 however I think my main focus is going to be getting more balance. It’s pretty fair to say my reading in 2017 was dominated by ARCs and while I consider myself very lucky to receive them (thank you publishers/authors), it does sometimes feel like I’m on a schedule (albeit self imposed) and I never get to the books I own. I’m not going to stop requesting/reading ARCs (they’re far too tempting) but I do want to get into my backlist a bit more, finish off those series I’m partway through and read some of those books I’ve always said I’m going to. To that end I’ve therefore set myself the following reading goals:

  1. GoodReads Challenge  – Similar to last year I don’t plan on worrying too much about this one. I want my focus to be on quality rather than quantity and I want to read some of those longer or more challenging books I’ve been putting off. I read 180 books in 2016 and managed to cut back to around 150 in 2017 so I’m setting my target for 2018 to 120 books i.e. 10 per month but I’m not going to worry too much if I don’t hit it.
  2. TBR Takedown – I haven’t done a count in a while but I’m fairly certain that between ebooks and physical books I own over 300 books I haven’t read (oops). If I was in any way sensible I’d stop buying more but they are just sooo pretty and I want them all. So to let me buy more books without so much guilt I’m setting a target to read at least 35 of the books I currently own (around 3 a month). I’m thinking about bringing in a TBR jar to help me pick but I’m not convinced the random pick would work for me.
  3. Series Completion – I have a bit of a bad habit of starting new series but never finishing them. I’m slightly scared to count how many series I’m mid way through and I suspect I’ve forgotten some of them. There are a few I have no intention of continuing with (expect a post on this at some point) but for those I do, I really want to finish them before I forget what I have read and have to start again. I’m not sure how to set a target on this as it kind of depends on how many books are in the series and how many I’ve read. Umm ok, let’s say I will complete 10 series in 2018 (eek!!!)
  4. Classics – I set myself the goal of reading at least 5 classics in 2017 and despite that not being hugely challenging I didn’t quite manage it (I’ve read 3). I have however started listening to a few on audio and have been really enjoying them. In 2018 I am therefore committing to read (or listen to) at least 6 classics. I already have a couple lined up (one of which is a chunkster) but I’m open to suggestions for the others.
  5. New 2 U Authors – I love trying new authors and often choose books at random based on a cover or a blurb so while this may seem a little contrary to my goal of reading more older/owned books I already have a heck of a lot of books by authors I’ve never read. Having just had a skim through my kindle books sorted by author I’ve already counted 17 and I’m only at the letter C. I’m therefore increasing last years target of reading at least 20 (I actually read around 70) to at least 30 books by authors that are new to me with at least 15 of these authors whose books I already own.
  6. ARC Control – I made incredible progress in getting my NetGalley feedback ratio from 71% at the start of 2017 to 84% by the end of it but I do still have over 30 books sitting on my shelf. My aim is therefore to maintain an 80%+ ratio but also to reduce the number of books on my shelf. I would instigate a request ban but I’m a realist so instead I’m committing to request no more than I read and review in a month. I’m also setting a limit of 5 books a month to try and force myself to only request those books I really want.

I was also considering taking on either Popsugar’s 2018 reading challenge or Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge but I feel like I’ve just finished a lot of books that fit the prompts and I want to read something different. I may track against one of them therefore but I don’t think I’m going to search out books to fit.

Blog Goals

In addition to reading goals I also want to set myself a few new blog goals. I feel like I’ve fallen into a rut and have been neglecting things a bit. I therefore want to freshen things up but more than anything I want to get some structure in place so you all know what to expect and I have less last minute scrabbles to pull together posts or reviews.

  1. Graphics/Photographs – I’ve played around with the design of my blog over the last 12 months and I do think it looks a little better but it’s still seriously lacking in terms of graphics and pictures. I’m probably the least creative or arty person you’ll ever meet but I’m going to try over the next year to get a bit more design and photography into my posts.
  2. Discussion posts – while I’ve started doing more feature or recommendation type posts through Top Ten Tuesday I would like to try some discussion posts. I’m going to aim for one a month which hopefully will be doable. I just need to think of some topics that haven’t been done about a million times before.
  3. Regular review posts – I tend to be a little bit erratic in my reviews, not posting any for a couple of weeks and then doing a raft of them in the same day. I’m going to aim for at least one review a week and try to have a set day or days when I post them.
  4. Scheduling and planning – I’m a bit of a pantser as far as this blog goes and currently do next to no planning. I do a couple of memes on a weekly basis but often only write the post the night before. Reviews are written and posted as and when I feel like and generally from no notes. I therefore want to add a bit of structure and maybe have set days for certain types of posts (and maybe stop posting at 10 at night).

So that’s it. Looking at the length of this post it’s now seeming a lot but I don’t think I’ve put anything down which isn’t possible (I hope). Wish me luck!

Do you set yourself reading or blog goals? Do we have any in common or are you trying something very different this year?

35 thoughts on “My 2018 Bookish Goals”

  3. Ohh I’d love to read the series you won’t finish and why! Sounds like an interesting discussion post too! 🙂 hope you’ll be able to reach your goals in 2018, I may set a few but most of the time I’ll only feel pressured to reach them, which leaves me in breakdowns and such._.

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    • I have to admit I don’t hold myself too tightly to them so no pressure. The one I’ll struggle most with is limiting my ARCs. There are just too many tempting books on there.

      I’ve been meaning to write a series I’m never going to finish list for a while and maybe a series I wish I hadn’t finished post 😂 There are so many I wish I’d just given up on.

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      • hahaha yeah I get that. Those series where you hope the next book will be better at least, and it only gets worse and worse with each book :p ,

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    • The number of times I seem to say “I really want to read that but haven’t gotten around to it yet” is frightening. It’s tough when you keep seeing those shiny new ones (and if you’re me, have a book buying problem).

      Hopefully we’ll both manage to read more classics.

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    • I set up a spreadsheet last year to track both my reading and progress against goal but stopped updating it around March. I probably should have put it as one of my goals but I’m going to resurrect it and try and keep it up to date this time.

      I nicked it from somewhere and it’s really good as it tracks things like diversity, author nationality, gender etc.

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    • Thank you. I actually work in planning but am the worst when it comes to my home life 😀 Maybe because I do it at work I don’t want to at home.

      I will assume I’m one of the 8% who do achieve their personal goals but realistically yep I’m one of the 92%. I don’t take them too seriously, although I have now written them down.

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      • That’s how I’ve often done it too – I seem to be good in achieving goals at work (or previously also at universities) and just realised bad I’m sometimes in getting my own personal goals done. I’ve been doing some research on goals setting etc and I have a plan for the next year – I call it Personal Growth project 😉 I’ll be sharing different productivity and time management techniques on my blog, as well as I intend to write how I’m getting on with working on my goals. I think this can keep me more accountable and reliable to myself as well 😉
        Aggie

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  9. Your reading goals have inspired me. I think you should take part in the Beat the Backlist challenge, I took part this year and I ticked off 18 books off my TBR list. I too would like to read classics in 2018 I just need to decide on how many I should read.

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  10. I’ve had my GoodReads goal set to 75 the past two years and hit 90 each time… since I’m only studying for half of 2018 rather than full year, I’m debating whether to aim for 100. Apart from that, my only real goal is to keep reading books I own. I seem to have managed to avoid too many lists of 2018 releases so maybe I can remain ignorant for a while longer!

    Good luck with your own goals! I think they’re all quite achievable.

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    • Thanks. I’m hoping they’re achievable, provided I don’t get too tempted by NetGalley or Readers First which is always a danger. There are a few series I love that are finishing this coming year so I’ll definitely be picking up those books but there aren’t too many new series or standalones that I’m desperate to read (although it’s possible I’ve been missing the lists too). Hopefully it’ll let me get into my backlist more.

      I don’t take the Goodreads one too seriously. I’m always way out on my estimate.

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  11. That’s a great plan about reading longer, more challenging books- I want to do something similar next year, so I’m actually hoping my read count will go down. And I need to read more classics next year for sure and I can relate about not finishing series 😉 Great goals!!

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    • I’m weirdly kinda happy I read less in 2017 than the previous year. I feel like I don’t always take the time to enjoy my reads. I’m hoping these goals will help but I’ve just signed up for a couple of team challenges and already feeling under pressure.

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  14. I’m just seriously trying to get a grip on my review TBR. As of today I have 77 NetGalley titles not yet read or reviewed AND 41 Edelweiss titles not yet read or reviewed. GASP……….
    I’m SUCH a greedy-guts when it comes to DARCs.

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  15. I do the Goodreads reading challenge as well, though last year I fell a bit short. I also must admit that I too have to pay a bit more attention to NetGalley ARCs. They tend to get away from you. But my main goal for the year is to work on my TBR and get more reviews posted!

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