Hi, my name is Cat, and I can’t seem to stop buying ebooks on sale.

The Problem

You know the feeling. You sign up for a couple of different e-mails that’ll tell you when ebooks go on sale, and the next thing you know, your Kindle/Nook/digital library has more unread than read books.

That’s basically what I’m experiencing right now. Between buying ebooks at a reasonable price, getting others gifted to me, digital library loans (I love them), and my decently sized backlog of digital books and ARCs to review, my poor digital library is out of control.

It’s actually really overwhelming.

My Attempt At Organization

I know there are probably a million different ways to sort a digital library. For example, I use two different methods for my e-reader and phone. 

For my e-reader, I usually try to download everything that needs to be read, deleting (or moving to the cloud) any book upon completion. It sounds messy, but at least this way, I can easily see my options. Granted, this gets more complicated the bigger my digital TBR list gets. I should probably start messing around with folders and other methods of secondary organization, such as grouping books by genre or source (purchase, arc, etc.).

As far as the system on my phone goes, I mainly try to keep it clear. This means only downloading the books I’m hoping to read in the near future. This has more to do with space than practicality, and I desperately need to find a new system. 

Why I Need to Do Better

The problem with the above systems is that losing a book in this mess is very easy. While I can use the search feature to find a specific book, it doesn’t help me if I’m a.) browsing or b.) can’t remember what I wanted to read next. 

The other problem, of course, is that I sincerely want to read all of these books. They all looked amazing when I bought them (or requested them from the library or agreed to review them), and I want to do them justice by reading and reviewing them. I think we all feel that way to some extent.

Primarily, I handle it by trying to get a mental priority list going. ARCs and newer releases getting the priority, then books by my favorite authors, and so on. But that results in many books getting constantly pushed to the back burner. I suppose, as far as problems go, it could be worse.

Recently, I’ve been playing around with a cup system (see: From the Cup). Basically, I wrote down all (most) of the books on my TBR list, including the digital ones. These book titles went on to tiny pieces of paper, which were then folded and placed in a cup. This way, when I don’t know what I want to read, I just pull from the cup, and away I go. I have no idea how well this system will work in the long run, but it’s been fun so far!

So tell me, how big is your digital TBR pile? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by it? And if not, what are you doing differently?