Managing My "to Be Read" Pile of Books - A Haunted House Ghost Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome James J. Cudney back to Cozy Up With Kathy today. James writes the Braxton Campus Mysteries. Haunted House Ghost is the fifth book in the series and was released on the first of this month. I know turn the blog over to him.

I’m thrilled to be back on the Great Escape Virtual Book Blog Tour with Lori Caswell and the entire team. Today, I’d like to share a post about how I am managing my ‘To Be Read’ pile of books. Almost every reader has more than they can handle. Nearly all writers want to get their books to the top of the pile. How does an author handle it? Let’s hope I sound interesting and provide valuable advice. I’d hate to bore and confuse you… you’d tell me I’m just like Kellan’s nemesis and boss, Dr. Myriam Castle. Ouch!

About a year ago, my TBR had 1,000 books listed. Every time I’d enter a Goodreads Giveaway, hear about a book that sounded interesting, or met a new author, I’d add one to the pile. I manage my books in Goodreads, so in addition to my book reviews, others can usually see what I’m currently reading or about to read. I have ~100 shelves with different genres, sources, groupings, et al. At some point, I gave in… I never knew what to read next and felt overwhelmed about choosing a book. I began keeping an Excel spreadsheet to manage the order and/or what I had to buy, review, and post. It’d gotten out of hand, and I finally realized… life is too short to sweat this small stuff.

So, I instituted a few rules. I decided that I wanted to focus on catching up on book series and favorite authors before anything else. I needed to track authors I knew whom I’d agreed to read, either indies I’d met online or fellow authors at my publishing house I wanted to sample. I wanted to keep track of books that hadn’t yet been published from authors I enjoyed, so I could jump on them when they were available. After creating those shelves, I marked all my TBR books with the appropriate categories. Out of the 1,000, there were ~150 that I “really wanted” to read. It was a tough day, but I marked 850 books to be deleted, then moved them all to and emptied the trash bin. It was cathartic. I might’ve cried a few tears. But truthfully, it’s kinda like life. You have friends that are in your life for some period of time, then you grow apart, change jobs, or graduate from school. It doesn’t mean they’re gone forever… just that your bucket is too full to handle every single item that’s trying to fill it. That’s okay, in my opinion. You can always go back to them, and if it’s meant to be, you will find each other again. The book, I mean. I can’t speak to your friends. I don’t even know how to manage my own. (BTW, don’t tell my friends I said that… they might take it the wrong way!)

I focused on only those 150 books throughout the last year. I followed all my favorite authors on Goodreads and Amazon, so now I get an email when they add a new book. Then, I can add them to my TBR and put them on the ‘waiting to be published’ bookshelf while I focus on all the rest of those 150 puppies. Of course, other things crept into the TBR… blog tours I signed up for, really cool books that I had to try (promising myself only if I could get to it within 3 months), and freebies from NetGalley, Giveaways, etc. I am proud to say my TBR is under 20 books as of today (when I’m writing this post). 80% of them haven’t been published yet either. Now, I have a manageable list. And each time I knock 5 off the list, I let myself search NetGalley or the freebie sites to find something new to read. It keeps me sane. Sometimes it’s difficult to limit the desire to keep adding more, but like desserts, if I don’t force myself to sample lightly, my health would not be in a good place!

How do you manage your TBR? What tips can you share? What hasn’t worked? I’m curious to know all the awesome tricks so that I can keep mine under control in different ways. Curious about the shelves? Check out my Goodreads profile in the About Author section on this post. You’ll even know what I’m likely to read next.

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Haunted House Ghost: Death At The Fall Festival (Braxton Campus Mysteries) by James J. Cudney

About Haunted House Ghost

Haunted House Ghost: Death At The Fall Festival (Braxton Campus Mysteries)  

Cozy Mystery 5th in Series  

Gumshoe Books - A Next Chapter Imprint (October 1, 2019)  

Digital Edition, 275 pages 

It’s Halloween, and excitement is brewing in Braxton to carve jack-o’-lanterns, go on haunted hayrides, and race through the spooky corn maze at the Fall Festival.

Despite the former occupant’s warnings, Kellan renovates and moves into a mysterious old house. When a ruthless ghost promises retribution, our fearless professor turns to the eccentric town historian and an eerie psychic to communicate with the apparition. Meanwhile, construction workers discover a fifty-year-old skeleton after breaking ground on the new Memorial Library wing.

While Kellan and April dance around the chemistry sparking between them, a suspicious accident occurs at the Fall Festival. Soon, Kellan discovers the true history and dastardly connections of the Grey family. But can he capture the elusive killer - and placate the revenge-seeking ghost.

About James J. Cudney

 

James is my given name; most call me Jay. I grew up on Long Island and currently live in New York City, but I've traveled all across the US (and various parts of the world). After college, I spent 15 years working in technology and business operations in the sports, entertainment and media industries. Although I enjoyed my job, I left in 2016 to focus on my passion: telling stories and connecting people through words. My debut novel is 'Watching Glass Shatter,' a contemporary fiction family drama with elements of mystery, suspense, humor and romance. To see samples or receive news from my current and upcoming books, please subscribe with your email address at my website: https://jamesjcudney.com.

What do I do outside of writing: I'm an avid genealogist (discovered 2K family members going back about 250 years) and cook (I find it so hard to follow a recipe). I love to read; between Goodreads and my blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, I have over 900 book reviews which will give you a full flavor for my voice and style. On my blog, there is humor, tears, love, friendship, advice and bloopers. Lots of bloopers where I poke fun at myself all the time. Even my dogs have segments where they complain about me. All these things make up who I am; none of them are very fancy or magnanimous, but they are real and show how I live every day.

List of Books: Watching Glass Shatter (October 2017) Father Figure (April 2018)  
Braxton Campus Mysteries Academic Curveball - #1 (October 2018) Broken Heart Attack - #2 (November 2018) Flower Power Trip - #3 (March 2019) Mistaken Identity Crisis - #4 (June 2019) Haunted House Ghost - #5 (October 2019)  
Websites & Blog Website: https://jamesjcudney.com/  
Blog: https://thisismytruthnow.com  
Next Chapter: https://www.nextchapter.pub/authors/james-j-cudney?rq=cudney  
Social Media Links Amazon: http://bit.ly/JJCIVBooks  
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamescudney4  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesJCudneyIVAuthor/  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BraxtonCampusMysteries/  
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jamescudney4/  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamescudney4/  
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/jamescudney4  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescudney4  

Purchase Links – Amazon

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