How to Track Your Reading Data: The Spreadsheet Method
As I’ve mentioned in a couple previous posts, I’ve been reflecting on my reading life lately, and a few people—through their own honest reflections—have helped me see that the books I read tend to fall into some predictable routines. I tend to read female authors of historical fiction, and male authors of business nonfiction. There are a few exceptions, of course, but for the most part those trends are consistent. I have to wonder: What am I missing by keeping my reading life so homogeneous?
I was talking to one of my colleagues about this, and she shared with me an incredible tool she uses for tracking her book data and making intentional changes in her reading life: a Google spreadsheet.
Mind. Blown.
Why track your book data?
Like many readers, I have used Goodreads to keep track of the books I read for years. And I’ll keep doing so, because Goodreads has some undeniable perks. They track helpful metrics like page count, dates read, and rating. They even do a very light level of analysis for you at the end of the year. For example, my 2018 stats from Goodreads showed that I read over 17,000 pages last year!
But Goodreads doesn’t go far enough if you really want to analyze your reading life. There’s no way to:
- Track abandoned books
- Export data
- Track metrics like authors’ nationalities, gender, etc.
- Track format/media
- Make charts!
I immediately saw the benefits of my friend’s spreadsheet. I loved that it enabled her to keep track of how often she was reading authors of color (AOC), the genres she was reading, the formats (print, audio, etc.), and the different countries where authors are from. Obviously, I had to try it for myself.
I went back through my Goodreads data since 2013 and put it into my own spreadsheet. I was amazed to discover some things about my reading life that I hadn’t before. For example, I always thought I did a good job of reading authors from all over the world. After all, I love Russian literature, I’ve read several accounts of life in various countries in Africa, and I often read books about World War II and other major events in Europe. Surely, my international reading would have spanned most of the globe. I laugh now, looking at my spreadsheet. I still have SO far to go in reading all over the world!
Now I’m tracking all kinds of data, like my number of abandoned books and how far I got in each of them, the ratings I give books, and more. Reflecting on this data has helped me form my 2019 reading goals and is now a consistent part of my reading life.
Maybe you’re ok with knowing what you like and sticking to it, and that’s great. To some extent, I do that, too. I am much less adventurous with my genres than perhaps I should be. For example, if someone recommends sci-fi to me, I will with no hesitation give a “no, thank you.” I just don’t like it.
But when it comes to the genres I do like—literary fiction, historical fiction, narrative non-fiction—I am interested in all kinds of things, and I don’t want to limit myself to just the predictable subjects that I already know well. Being aware of my reading habits helps me make intentional choices to pursue more diverse books.
How to track your book data
As you can tell by now, I use the spreadsheet method. There are other methods, too! Bullet journaling and book journaling are two other common methods. Anne Bogel of ModernMrsDarcy uses her own reading journal method and sells Reading Journal kits to get you started. I don’t use those methods because, as explained above, I love data and want to be able to play with it once I have it.
If you like the spreadsheet method, it’s pretty easy to make a spreadsheet to fit any specifications you want!
First, decide what you want to track
Since learning about this method, I’ve discovered that lots of readers track their book data. Here are some of the metrics I’ve seen tracked:
- Date read/completed
- Page count
- Genre
- Format/media (audiobook, paperback, etc.)
- Female/male authors
- International authors
- International settings
- Characters’ nationalities
- Authors’ nationalities
- Authors of color
- Rating
- Abandoned books
I have decided to track more data about authors than about characters—though I do like the idea of tracking settings as well, and might add that to my spreadsheet. I started with a rather simple spreadsheet and over time I’ve added more to it. Start with just the metrics you know you want to track, and you can always go back and add more!
Make your spreadsheet!
First, choose what program you’d like to use for tracking. I prefer Google spreadsheets so that I can access it from any device any time—but, of course, you should use whatever software you prefer!
I’ve seen it done both ways: you can make a new spreadsheet for every year, or keep all of your year’s data on separate tabs. I like to have every year’s data in one spreadsheet, separated by tabs, so that I can easily reflect on each year.
Your first two columns of each year’s sheet should be the title of the book and the author. I like to freeze these panes so that they are always visible, no matter the number of other metrics I decide to track. Then, columns C and onward should be those other metrics. Here’s a snapshot of what my spreadsheet looks like for 2019:
Next, you should put in the formulas for totals or averages. Leave several rows blank so that you don’t have to keep inserting new rows every time you add a book. I read over 50 books in 2018, so I put my totals/averages in row 57. I’m doing the same in 2019.
For the most part, in that last row you’ll want to have the totals from your columns (total number of books written by women, total number of audiobooks, etc.). But if you’re tracking the ratings you give books, you might want to include the average rating you give books instead. In 2018, I gave an average rating of 4.075 (on a 5-point scale). This is much higher than my averages in years past: 3.6 in 2017, 3.8 in 2016, 3.6 again in 2015. You could look at that two ways: either I’m pretty generous with my ratings, or I’m picking better books to read.
From there, you can add color to help distinguish columns/rows, or just for decoration! The possibilities are endless. Personally, I’m a bit minimalistic, so my spreadsheet is a classic black and white.
If you don’t want to make your own, you can copy mine or copy this one I saw on BookRiot from a couple years ago. BookRiot also just came out with this pretty epic spreadsheet for 2019 that includes more metrics than I could think of (time per day? Pages per day??).
How to copy a Google Spreadsheet
If you have a Google account:
To copy a Google spreadsheet, go to File - Make a Copy. In the popup, you can rename it and choose which of your own Google Drive folders you’d like to place it in. It will then be there waiting for you, all ready for you to enter your book data!
If you don’t have a Google account, you can make one and follow the steps above. If you don’t want to make one, follow these instructions:
Go to File - Download as - Microsoft Excel. Start filling in your book data!
I hope all of that is helpful to you as you decide whether and how to track your reading data for 2019. Do you have any different methods for tracking? What are your favorite metrics to track? What have you learned from tracking your reading life?
