Photo of the Week

A friend of mine from work was giving away this bookshelf. Look how perfectly it fits on top of the one we already had in the bedroom! Yay more book storage! I need to add those shelves to the indexing program, now.

Bagging & Boxing & Shelving…Oh My (Books)!

I know some readers who “read and release”. That is to say, they get a book, they read the book, they give the book away (or turn it in to the nearest library or used bookstore). My mom does this, and she seems perfectly happy to have read the material and passed on the actual object. She does have an ereader, but she doesn’t really use it much. My dad, on the other hand, reads ebooks almost exclusively. It’s easier for him, as he’s dyslexic and the digital text allows him to adjust settings for maximum ease of reading.

I, on the other hand, am a collector. While I do read ebooks occasionally, my physical library brings me joy just by existing, the sight of all those books on the shelves (and piled up…uh…everywhere) makes me feel calm and peaceful. Unfortunately, I don’t have room for all the books (there’s never going to be enough room – it doesn’t matter where I live), but I have a hard time parting with any of them, so…cleaning out doesn’t happen often.

Books recently liberated from a storage unit, waiting for shelf space.

I also read comic books, and unlike novels, they don’t tend to stay in tall stacks very well. I also can’t just shelve them, though I do keep some of mine shelved in binders. The rest have to be bagged and boxed, to keep them in good condition and stored away efficiently. It’s the one place in my life where I don’t balk too much at using plastic, mainly because I expect the plastic to be in use protecting the books for a very, very long time.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my “finished” comic book stack was getting too big for the space it was in, and decided it was time to bag, board and box a bunch. I bought some new boxes and bags at the comic shop, and that Saturday night, I spread everything out in the living room to work on while I watched a movie with my husband (The Out-Laws, for anyone curious…it’s mildly amusing, but not something I’d choose to watch again).

This year, I’ve been reading one issue per day (I got way, way behind for a few years, and kept buying, but wasn’t reading, so..it’s catch-up year), and because I do that before work, I don’t have a lot of time to keep things organized. So I just toss each issue on the “to be indexed” stack, and call it good. This results in a stack of mixed issues that are in backwards numerical order (apparently it’s too hard just to turn them upside down before I toss them on the stack). So my process when storing them is to grab the bottom of the stack, sort by issue and series, and then bag one, scan the barcode, index it, and then put it in the respective box or binder.

It’s not a difficult process, but it does take time, and tends to be a bit tedious. And if I wasn’t using an indexing software to keep track (I use CLZ Comics – link below in the Recommendations section), I’d be totally lost when I have to stop for any length of time and then try to remember which issue I left off with (especially since comic series are notorious for spin-offs and “series within a series” type stuff, resulting in odd issue orders here and there).

In any case, I got about 50 issues bagged and boxed in that session (I had to do a lot of sorting before I started), and then I ran out of boards. For those not familiar, the “boards” are just a piece of thick stock placed in the bag behind the comic book to keep it flat while it’s stored. So, I’ll need to grab more of those before I can continue my archiving project – I’ll do that in a couple of weeks after payday.

More TBR books – that get moved from this vanity chair to the bed every morning, and back at night. *eyeroll*

A few years ago, I decided I also should index all the “normal” books…which is a project I still haven’t even come close to finishing. But I do try to add any new book that comes in to the index, along with a general idea of which shelf it’s on in case we need/want to find it again. Which is why you’ll see labels with numbers on most of the shelves in our house. Those numbers correspond to a number in my library indexing program. I use CLZ Comics for my comic books, and CLZ Books for everything else. Currently I only keep subscriptions for the phone apps ($15 per year each, which isn’t unreasonable, IMO), because that’s the most useful – I can just scan the barcode to enter a book, and unless it’s something really obscure, it’s generally already in the database. And then I have a good chunk of our books in my pocket all the time, so when we’re shopping we can avoid buying something we’ve already read or bought.

On the occasion I get into a heavy indexing phase of older books, I’ll pay for a month or two of the web app as well, so I can enter the books a bit easier with the larger interface, since those barcodes are less likely to actually be found in the system. It all connects to my same account, so all the data is going to the same spot, it’s just the different interface I’m paying for in that case.

Then there’s my Kindle and ebook library. I used to keep my Kindle books organized into folders and such, and then just sort of gave up, but I really wish they were more organized. I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Paperwhite to the new version (just for a little faster processor), but I also use the Kindle app on my phone, so…it would behoove me to get things organized one of these days.

The rest of my ebooks (non-Kindle/Amazon), are all sitting on a folder in my Dropbox account, loosely organized by non-fiction and fiction, and since I get so few PDF books anymore, it’s not really worth my time to organize them any further than that. I really should go through my crochet/knit ebooks though. I often get those in PDF so I can load them on my reMarkable and keep track of my stitch counts as I go. One of these days. Maybe. Sounds like a winter project, doesn’t it?

So, do you keep your library organized/indexed? Or do you prefer the excitement of a hunt every time you’re looking for something to read or reference?

Writing & Publishing News

It’s been a bit slow-going lately, but I’m still moving forward. The biggest news is that MacKenzie Saves the World will finally be out in print August 11th! So for anyone who likes romance in print (ironically, I read most of my romance in digital form), I’ll have links up then, and it will be available at our local bookstore soon too (whenever the shipment gets here). So that’s fun. Personally, I think it’s the best romance I’ve written yet…until I finish the Magpie stories, anyways.?

I’m working away on Magpie Shiny, slowly but surely, and I also got started on a hopefully fall release for my horror alter-ego this past week as well. So, aside from getting distracted by health issues here and there (stupid body), I’m feeling pretty good about hopefully having some fun new releases coming soon(ish).

I’m also going to take advantage of Ingram’s new mass market paperback size, and work on formatting some of my alter-ego’s short stories into MMPs. I love that size book, and while the preference for trade size seems to be trending, I think MMP is still perfect for shorter stories. That’s my next print project.

Recommendation(s)

For anyone interested in indexing your personal library, I highly recommend CLZ Books, and CLZ Comics. They also have modules for movies, video games, etc – check ’em out!

Screenshots of my indexes…I thought I had more covers in the books one…

That’s it for this week! If you have a favorite thing to share, or want to recommend a book, TV show, video or podcast, comment below, email me at jamie@jamiedebree.com, or catch up with me on Facebook or Instagram.

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | The Book Depository
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible
Google Play (digital) | Google Play (Audio)