Monday, November 9, 2015

How To Get The Most Out Of Goodreads: Exclusive Shelves

I love using Goodreads. I know, there have been a lot of issues that have cropped up even of the few years that I've been a member - but I've yet to find a website that works so well for me. I use Goodreads more as a way to find books to read than as a social platform and I think it works wonderfully as that. (Because as a social platform, I'm either doing it wrong, or it's awful.)

Bookshelves
I think my favorite thing about Goodreads is the way you can use their 'bookshelves' option. Now, I'll admit, it took me a distressing amount of time to truly figure this out. Ever since I first joined, I've organized books by shelves. Usually by genre. That worked out fine until I created a little thing called a tbr-jar shelf. I didn't want those books mixed up with my 'to-buy' books, so I had to create another shelf. Then my shelves got even messier. Then I discovered a wonderful little thing called 'exclusive shelves'.

Exclusive Shelves
Basically, what this means is that a book can only be on one exclusive shelf. When you first join Goodreads, you have three exclusive shelves. 'Read' 'Currently Reading' and 'To Read'. Any book you add has to be on one and only one of those shelves. However, you can add exclusive shelves.
To add an exclusive shelf, all you need to do is click on the 'edit' next to 'bookshelves' (up there by the top edge of my arrow). From that page you can create new shelves and make any of them exclusive.

This has helped me organize my books so much and hopefully you'll find it useful too. If there's anything you'd like to learn how to do on Goodreads, leave me a comment and I'll see if I can help you out.

Comments (4)

Loading... Logging you in...
  • Logged in as
How did I not know about this feature on Goodreads? I feel I now need to go and completely reorganise my shelves to make the most of this feature! I normally just use the site to keep track of new releases and what I'm currently reading. I didn't know there was the opportunity for such organisation. The neat, organised half of me wants to go and tidy everything, but the lazy disorganised part of me is complaining about all the work it would involve.
My recent post Sunday Summary: 08.11.2015
1 reply · active 488 weeks ago
I know! When I first discovered this, I was wondering why no one had told me about it sooner. Personally, I think this is one of the most helpful features I've discovered on Goodreads. I've not used it quite as much as I probably should have, but so far, I love it. But I love keeping track of everything I've read since I joined Goodreads - and each one has to be on it's proper shelf. (Of course, physically, my books are a bit more messy.) I wish you lots of luck, if you decide to organise everything - because if you're anything like me, the organised part will win and then wish the disorganised part would have before the job's even half finished!
I'm a fan of exclusive shelves too! I like having shelves that I can put things on so that they don't sit on my To-Read shelf, like DNF books ha
1 reply · active 487 weeks ago
Yeah, it makes keeping your shelves neat so much easier. I actually haven't made a DNF shelf yet. I need to, but I really don't want to see all the book recommendations that I'd get for the books I couldn't even finish.

Post a new comment

Comments by