It’s that time of year again, time to start setting goals and plans for the new year ahead. Reading-wise, I had a very successful 2024. Even with several slumps and weeks with no reading at all, I’ll be finishing the year with my highest number of books read yet. I want to build on this momentum in 2025, and kept this in mind when I put together my goals for the year.

Of course, we are entering into very uncertain times in 2025, and I anticipate it to be a very challenging year in so many ways. I’m choosing to be optimistic in my posts featuring my goals and plans for 2025, but will flex as needed. I am also hoping to return to the workforce in early 2025 which may affect some of my goals as well.

Read Daily

When I hit slumps, it usually starts as one day of not reading anything, which grows into a week or more. My goal for this year is to read every day. It doesn’t matter how much. One section of a physical or ebook, one chapter of an audio book. One page of something. I just need to read every day.

Focus on 4 Areas

The 4 areas of focus are the same as the second half of 2024: 1000 Book Project, ARCs, Diversity, and Series in progress. I have a rolling TBR in place that draws on this focus and I will be continuing to read from it this year. It will need some adjustments for current ARCs each month, but other than that it should work to get me through 2025 with these categories as my focus.

Raise Feedback Ratio

I do not have a lot of followers either here on the blog or on social media, so the only real way to increase my odds of getting approved for some of the “bigger” ARCs I want to get is to improve my feedback ratio on Net Galley. I’ve already raised it by over 10% in the last year, and hope to raise it even more in 2025. With a focus on ARCs, this should definitely be the case. I am planning to do quarterly updates on where I stand with my ARCs, as well as including this information in my monthly stats posts.

Diversify Even More

I have never shied away from diverse books, but prior to 2020, I hadn’t made a concerted effort to seek them out. I chose books that looked interesting in the bookstore or library, never thinking that this limited my options. In 2020, however, I took a really hard look at the books on my shelves and TBR and made an effort to consciously diversify . But there is still room for improvement. I currently have very few books by indigenous authors, especially fiction. I also want to add more books featuring main characters who are disabled or have chronic illnesses. I want to focus in on the marginalized communities that are currently missing from my shelves, while increasing my support to those I’m already reading. My world view and understanding has only increased and broadened, the more diverse my reading becomes. I’ll be finishing 2024 with around 40% diverse reads (mostly LGBTQIA2S+ and Black authors), I want to get this number to 50% 0r higher for 2025.

Track Progress

In 2025, I will be tracking more criteria. In addition to books read, authors read, ARCs read, and ratings; I will also be tracking the number of diverse books read (and their categories) and challenge progress (locations, alphabet, etc.). All of the various spreadsheets I have created, as well as my physical reading log, will be used for this tracking. And updates will be posted regularly on the blog.