This year, I set myself what I thought was an ambitious goal: I was going to read 100 books. I figured it was ambitious, because that’s almost two books a week, but doable, because I was working part-time and I was probably going to be home a lot due to the pandemic.
Anyway, I hit my goal of 100 at the end of August, and my year-end total is 147 books as of 10am this morning.
As we look ahead to the New Year, you might be thinking of setting your own reading goal. Maybe you want to read 100 books too. But even if you want to read 50, 25, or 12 books, it can help to make a plan for how you’re going to achieve your goal. Here are some tips to set you on the road to success for your 2022 reading goal.
Set a Goal That Feels Reachable
In my mind, a good reading goal is something that feels like a reach, but not a huge stretch. If you read 10 books this year, 12 or 15 might be a good goal for 2022. But if you read 10 books, aiming for 100 this year would require making serious changes to your current lifestyle!
To determine how many books you should read in 2022, look at how many you read in 2021. If you didn’t track your reading this past year, estimate. Consider how quickly you normally read books, and what your reading tastes are. If you prefer to immerse yourself in door-stopping epic fantasy, you may want to focus on quality over quantity and set yourself a lower goal that will allow you to indulge in your preferred reading style.
Decide What Counts as a Book
Before you can start on your goal, you need to decide what will count as a book for your personal challenge. Here are my thoughts on that, yours may be different.
- Novellas count as books
- Graphic novels count as books, as do trade paperback collections of multiple comic issues
- A cookbook or cocktail recipe book counts as a book IF it contains text other than just the recipes. For instance, if it has history, cultural information, helpful kitchen tips, personal stories, etc.
- The above counts for arts and crafts books, too.
- Audiobooks count as books! I don’t personally listen to them often, but I am 100% behind anyone who prefers this method of consuming books.
- Things that I don’t personally count as books: single comic book issues, short stories that are published individually, magazines (though you could make a strong argument for a literary magazine counting), books that are mostly just photos or recipes, voter information pamphlets even if they have some 60 candidates for governor or something.
Read Books You Like
Maybe this seems kind of obvious, but if you’re going to try to hit a reading goal, you should focus on books you actually want to read. Don’t read things just because you feel like you SHOULD, because everyone’s talking about it or it’s a great classic of literature that you missed in school. Read within your favorite fiction genre(s), or pick books on topics that you want to explore. You can sprinkle in some Very Important Books if you want, or slog through something to participate in book club, but the majority of your reads should be pleasure reads.
Read Short Books
Near the end of August I had a streak where I read 4 books in 2.5 days. How? They were all novellas. If I’d read nothing but novellas, I probably could have read 250 books this year, assuming there were 250 novellas I was interested in. I’m not saying you should only read short books, but I’m saying that if you start to fall behind on your goal, it’s really easy to catch up by going on a binge of reading shorter works. Consider novellas, short novels, graphic novels, a brisk and humorous memoir, that sort of thing.
Build Reading Time into Your Schedule
If you want to hit a reading goal, you have to make time to read! For me, I do the majority of my reading before bed, because that’s how I get to sleep. I also read if I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep. I also read if I wake up early and don’t want to get out of bed yet. Basically what I’m saying is I hit my reading goal early because I had a lot of insomnia struggles this year.
Other great times to read would be your lunch break, or putting on an audiobook while you commute or do chores.
Make It Easy to Read
Building off of the above tip, you can also help yourself towards your goal by making it easy to read. Have your books at hand! One technique that worked a lot for me was to have an easy-to-read book that was just hanging out in the living room. Think a collection of short essays, a cool recipe book, or a humor book. The sort of thing that is actually best read in short doses. Then if I was waiting for dinner to be ready, or killing time before an online class, I could read a little bit instead of scrolling social media.
Make It Affordable
Reading a lot of books can get expensive fast! That time when I read 4 books in 2.5 days, I looked up the cover prices for the ebooks, and it would have cost me $39 if not for my trusty local library. 100 books could have easily cost me $1000 or more! If you’re worried about how your budget will accommodate your big reading goals, there’s a few things you can do.
- Get and use your library card. Most libraries these days have a pretty good selection of ebooks and audiobooks in additional to physical books. You may have to wait a while to get hot new releases, and you may have to sometimes submit requests for specific titles, but these books are freeeeee. Sno-Isle Libraries let me have 20 ebooks checked out at a time and 30 titles on hold, so it’s pretty easy to build a queue of books. I especially like to use the library to stay on top of Tordotcom novellas, because those are great for increasing my read count, but can cost $11 for an ebook I can finish in 2 hours.
- Look for used bookstores in your town. Back before the ebook days, I got the majority of my reading material at Bookman’s in Tucson. Used bookstores will often charge 50% or less of the cover price and can be a great place for finding the back catalog of your favorite author, or weird gems. Plus you can get store credit by selling any books you’re done with.
- Swap books with friends. Obviously, never loan out a book you’re not willing to potentially lose forever, but trading books with friends is great for several reasons. One, you save money. Two, you might discover books you wouldn’t have read otherwise. Three, you automatically have someone to talk to about the books you’ve traded and have now both read. WIN!
- Enter contests to win ARCs. Authors, publishers, and sometimes book bloggers host giveaways of Advanced Reader Copies. Sometimes they even throw in some fun book swag! Note that if you do receive an ARC, the polite thing to do is rate and review it, either on your own blog, social media, or major retailers’ websites.
- Check out those Little Free Libraries around your neighborhood. What interesting paperback gems have people left for the taking?
Consider a Habit Swap
If you’ve set a very ambitious 2022 reading goal that requires major changes to your reading habits, look to see if you can replace a different habit with your reading. For instance, if you’re looking to watch less television or spend less time scrolling social media, replace that time with book time. Alternatively, stack your reading with another good habit. Want to exercise more? Load up an audiobook to enjoy while you’re on the treadmill. If you have kids and you’re looking to create more quality family time in 2022, you could read to or with your children.
Don’t Forget to Track Your Reading!
If you’re going for any goal bigger than one book a month, you’ll want to keep track of the books you read so you know how you’re progressing on your goal. I don’t like using Goodreads anymore, but it does have a convenient feature where you can sync it up with your reading app and it automatically tracks the ebooks you read, and then you can manually enter the physical books.
If you don’t want to share your reading data with a subsidiary of Amazon, there are other ways. For instance, you could make a spreadsheet. I went really old school and just wrote down each book in a cute little notebook. I’m thinking that in 2022, I might upgrade this and also include some brief notes about the book, in case friends ask me for recommendations and I’m trying to remember which books I read that had the elements they like.
Bribe Yourself With a Reward
In some ways, human beings are simple creatures. We like rewards! Don’t be afraid to harness this desire to encourage yourself to reach your 2022 reading goals. Feel free to channel your inner 6-year-old and create a sticker chart to track your reading. Plan a pizza party for when you hit your goal. Promise yourself a trip to the bookstore to get more books in order to get started on your 2023 reading list. Whatever works for you is a good choice.
Good Luck and Happy Reading!
However many books you plan to read in 2022, I hope that you have fun reading them. I’ll be cheering you on! Feel free to leave a comment or find me on Twitter (@sophiaravenna) if you want some more direct encouragement.