2014 in a nutshell

goalsIt’s December 31st, and I can’t believe 2014 is…gone. Just like that. The year went by so fast it’s almost impossible to grasp. Before I start working on my reading resolutions for the new year, I wanted to focus on what I accomplished in 2014, in terms of reading.

According to Goodreads, I read a total of 401 books. That’s not including some books I couldn’t review on Goodreads because they weren’t on there (a small number, but still). Over 400 books. That’s a huge improvement from last year, and to be honest, it’s still a little surreal. Of course this includes some books I read before 2014 (say about 50) but that I didn’t get around to reviewing until this year. Still. 400+ reviews. I need a life, LOL. I’d started with a goal of reading 150 books, then I went up to 200, chose 250 by July, then had to go up to 350 again in September, and now surpassed even that goal. Wow.

This year, I participated in a bunch of challenges. The first one, the Netgalley Reading Challenge, was a huge success. I wanted to read 22 Netgalley books and ending up reading at least three times as much. I didn’t even keep track of the challenge the last few months, since I’d already won. You can see my progress here.

The second challenge, the horror challenge. God, I love horror books. I’d picked the maximum goal, 16+ books, and I think I must’ve read at least a 100. I started keeping track until about 40. You can find my progress here.

Next up, the 100 books a year challenge. Yeah…you can say I kind of shattered that goal. Hehe.

The dystopia challenge proved to be the hardest, but I still won that one as well. I read at least 11 dystopia books this year, and my original goal had been 7. See my progress here.

The last challenge was the YA reading challenge. I went for 30 books, and already surpassed that goal in June. Again, I didn’t keep track of it afterward, but I’m guessing the total must be around 60. My progress for this challenge is here.

 I took a little trip down memory lane and tracked down my resolutions for 2014. The ones I completed are scratched through.

  1. Read and review at least 200 books.
  2. Keep track of progress on reading challenges I signed up for.
  3. Write monthly round-up posts at the end of each month.
  4. Crosspost reviews on Goodreads, B&N, Netgalley and I Heart Yearly Reads.
  5. Add covers of reviewed books on Facebook.
  6. Add covers of received review copies on Facebook.
  7. Bring Netgalley review rate up to 50%.
  8. Bring Netgalley review rate up to 60%.
  9. Bring Netgalley review rate up to 70%.
  10. Organize my Goodreads shelves.

So I didn’t get all of them, but I still got  quite a few, and I’m pleased. Guess the Facebook covers will have to switch over to next year’s goals. My Netgalley ratio went up to 92% even!

Goals for 2014

goalsLast year, I went a little overboard with my goal list. I reached quite a few of them, but I also failed an almost equal amount. Here are last year’s goals. I crossed the ones I finished out.

Reading and Reading Blog

  1. Keep a review schedule. Review a book maximum one week after I finished reading it.
  2. Finish blog schedule for upcoming month by the end of the previous month.
  3. Read and review 150 books.
  4. Keep track of my reading challenges on I Heart Reading Challenges.
  5. Keep track of all books I’ve read and review on I Heart Yearly Reads.
  6. Get through my backlist of review copies.
  7. Update the website design for I Heart Reading.
  8. Crosspost all reviews on Goodreads and B&N.
  9. Make a balanced blogging schedule of working on the blog maximum 1/2 hours a day consistently.
  10. Write monthly round-up posts at the end of each month.

So, as you can see, I didn’t do all that bad. The reading challenges failed (no wonder, I participated in 20 challenges!) so this year, I’ll keep track of them on the blog, and I only signed up for five. I’ll post about my progress regularly, and add the progress in the sidebar. As you can see, I added those cute little progress bars for the challenges in the sidebars, and I hope they’ll help me keep track.

I failed the monthly round-up posts as well, although that’s definitely something I want to incorporate here.

As for a balanced blogging schedule – I’m getting there. I write down five items each day on my to do list for my blog (and five for studying, book tours, writing, etc) and most days, I manage to do most, if not all, of them. But I’m still lagging behind. I want to get about a month head start on my post – which means I’d be writing reviews now for February. Unfortunately, not the case, which leaves me little breathing room. Oh well. Better luck this year!

And here are my goals for 2014 (reading-wise, if you want to see my writing goals, visit my author website).

  1. Read and review at least 200 books.
  2. Keep track of progress on reading challenges I signed up for.
  3. Write monthly round-up posts at the end of each month.
  4. Crosspost reviews on Goodreads, B&N, Netgalley and I Heart Yearly Reads.
  5. Add covers of reviewed books on Facebook.
  6. Add covers of received review copies on Facebook.
  7. Bring Netgalley review rate up to 50%.
  8. Bring Netgalley review rate up to 60%.
  9. Bring Netgalley review rate up to 70%.
  10. Organize my Goodreads shelves.

So, there they are. What are your goals for 2014?