Monday, November 23, 2015

My Book Buying Ban


Lately I've been going more than a little crazy buying books - and downloading free e-books. This has to stop. I mean, when I'm getting more books in a month than I read in a month, I'll never get through them all. I know this - yet I keep buying them. And getting them free for my kindle.

So, I've decided to do what every book blogger has probably thought about at least once: start a book buying ban. (le gasp! The horror!)

Rules:

  • I'd like to cut my TBR shelf by over half before I stop this ban. Ideally, I'll have cut it by over two-thirds.
  • For every five books I read, I can get one. If I read five kindle books, I can buy - or get free - one. If I read five physical books, I can buy one. Audiobooks can be kind of a 'wild card' in that they'll count toward either. DNF books do not count. At all.
  • I can buy the next book in the series - it's not part of my 5-to-1 rules. (Hopefully this will also encourage me to finish some of those lurking series.)
  • Library books do not count as anything and, for the length of this ban, I will try not to read any. (After all, this is an attempt to get through the books I've already got.)


This should allow me to buy the books I 'must have' but I can avoid getting a hold of any more of those books that will just sit there, looking at me accusingly.

I've already cut my TBR shelf by quite a lot this month, and as far as I'm concerned, even though I'm only now getting around to talking about it, I consider myself being on the ban for the entire month. (Though I'll still have a book haul post, because I bought books in October that I didn't get until November. They don't count.)

Ideally, I hope that this ban will last until at least my birthday. (Which is in February.) Four months should help me accomplish a lot. Right?

Have you ever been on a book buying ban? How did it work? Any tips for me? If you've never done a book buying ban, why haven't you? (Love to hear any thoughts and encouragement!)


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Comments (4)

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I think your ban is insanely sensible. My pitfall with book buying bans is that I go cold turkey on the buying front. Your 5 to 1 rule is genius (why did I not think of that?) because then you're still getting books, but you're not going crazy.

I completely feel your pain in going book crazy. I plan to implement a ban from December to get my unread books under control, it will be a cold turkey ban in December, but I might implement your idea after Christmas. It's too easy to justify all the books I buy, especially those free Kindle books (you're spending no money so what's the harm in it?).
3 replies · active 484 weeks ago
Thanks! I saw someone else do a 5 to 1 type ban (don't remember what numbers they used) and thought I might be able to work with that. I did a cold turkey ban back in September (though that was mostly to save money), but then bought way too much in October, so that didn't work so well.

I think free Kindle books is what started me down the road of having too many books, honestly. Some of them just look so good and, as you say, they're free, so why not go ahead and grab a couple? Or ten. Anyhow, I wish you lots of luck for your upcoming book buying ban.
It's too hard. Going cold turkey is just too hard! I've already gotten two books on my kindle (damn Amazon) but I really can't buy more now. I've bought Christmas presents and my bank balance is just too low for frivolous purchases so hopefully that will help motivate me... but it's only the 4th of the month so I may just sacrifice eating this month. I think the reward system may be best.

And free kindle books are one of my big issues, but the cheapness of kindle books doesn't help either. Just books. Books are my issue I think.
Psh, who needs food when you've got books? Okay, so we probably all do, but that's not the point. Yeah, this way you still get the books you 'can't live without' but don't go crazy. Honestly, what got me into this mess in the first place was buying books because they were cheap, when otherwise I probably wouldn't have looked at them twice. I need to figure out some way to make sure I really want to read the books before I buy them.

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