My Book Spreadsheet

I love books. 

The amount of books that exist both overwhelms me and excites me.

There are so many incredible books to read. But there are also so many incredible books to read. 

I currently live in the UK, but I used to live in Canada. When I moved, I had to give away most of my books. It was honestly tragic. I did manage to send across a box of some books in the mail.

When I first got here, I preferred to buy books on my Kindle. That way, if I moved again, I wouldn’t have to deal with trying to rebuild my personal library – and everything that goes along with giving away items with as much sentimentality as books. 

I’m a sucker for a sale, so I’ve bought a fair amount of books on sale on Kindle. 

I also discovered Humble Book Bundles, which are themed ebook bundles that are on the website Humble Bundle for short amounts of time.

There were short stints with Kobo and iBooks, as well.

And then I began to rebuild my physical book library. 

I was beginning to lose track of what books I had and which ones I still had to read. 

I know it’s a bit cliched to talk about a teetering TBR pile… but she’s teetering. 

With all of the books that I have, on the various platforms and mediums that I have them on, I made a spreadsheet with different tabs to keep track of them. 

Here is what my tabs look like:

I found it helpful to have different columns within the different tabs. 

Physical: 

I find the final column very helpful, as I still have books that I’m pretty sure I’ve leant out to other people, but I’m not quite sure enough who I’ve leant it out to or just not quite sure enough to chase them for this. Now I can keep track of who is borrowing my books, so I don’t have to sacrifice them. When they are returned, I delete their name from the column instead of keeping a record of it.

Kindle, iBooks, and Other E-Books:

Not too different from the Physical tab. I have also made collections on my Kindle and I find that helpful, but that will be for another post, I think. I have the other E-Book tabs set-up the same as the Kindle one.

Borrowed Books:

Because I also don’t want to be that person.

Audible:

I use Audible to listen to E-Books, and it’s pretty similar to my E-Book format, but just a bit simpler. 

Pre-Ordered:

While writing this post, I thought about how it might be a good idea to make a tab for books that I’ve pre-ordered – or books that I’m interested in pre-ordering. I got so excited about it that I went and made it!

For a long time, I didn’t really keep up with current books, so pre-ordering wasn’t really anything I had to keep in mind. I think I had pre-ordered maybe three books in my lifetime by a year or two ago.

I’ve pre-ordered at least double that within the last year, and I’ve been keeping an eye on other ones I hope to order soon. While preparing this tab, I also discovered that I had pre-ordered the same book from two different locations! Luckily, one of the places I had ordered it from was still waiting for it to come into stock, so I was able to cancel the order. This tab has already saved me some money!

I’m really hoping that this tab will help keep me organized. Both so that I don’t accidentally order multiple copies and so I don’t forget about any upcoming books that I’m excited about. There are so many books to read and I sometimes get distracted and forget about books that are coming out next in the series (because they can take so long before they come out), only to remember about, or be reminded of, them months after they’ve been released. By then I’m kicking myself a bit.

I order books from several different places and have a Kindle, so being able to see which format I’ve ordered a book is helpful, and if it’s coming to my house or if I have to go pick it up in store. 

Overall

I have this spreadsheet saved on Google Drive in Sheets so that I can update it on the go.

It has helped me to focus on lessening the amount in my TBR pile, but it also is just a nice way to keep track of the books I have – and the ones that I want to have if they haven’t yet been released. I’ve probably been using it for a year now, and I’m surprised about how much it has helped me to organize everything and how grounded it makes me feel.

Do you have an organizational system for all of your books? If so, what is it?