*State of the ARC* December 2017

So I'm hooking up with AvalinahsBooks for this newish meme, State of the ARC. According to the lovely Evelina, this is a "fun way to share our ARC (advance reader copy) progress," but near as I can figure, it's just a way to self-shame for being greedy and getting behind on our ARC reading. I'm personally coming to the conclusion that I was born without a shame gene, so this may be an exercise in futility for me, but it's only a once a month post, so why not play along (also when I went on my graphics making spree, I created a header for it, so I've got to use it). 

To start with, I need to bloviate about what qualifies as an ARC for me. Obviously books on Netgalley count (this is scary all on it's own, you'll see for yourself in a minute just how scary). But sometimes I get "suckered" into reviewing non-Netgalley books too (or you know, I'm just so greedy because I want all of the books and the synopses sound good and I have no self-control), so those books should really get a place here too (probably even more than the Netgalley ARCs because they're usually physical copies). I will not be counting the ARCs that I win through Goodreads giveaways however, because I want to pretend that this list is still theoretically manageable. 

I'm onto month three of participating in the State of the ARC meme, and it's currently shaping up to be an exercise in futility for me. Last month (November because I'm super late getting this post built) I increased the number of ARCs needing my attention by three books, and that's kind of the wrong direction. And December shaped up to be pretty much a complete bust for me on pretty much all counts because of moving (it's amazing how much time moving eats up even when other people are packing up all your things). That doesn't mean I stayed off Netgalley though. No, I couldn't have done THAT.

So now after two months where I'm supposed to be whittling down my numbers, where do I stand?

Netgalley

All things considered, even though I added two new books to my Netgalley numbers, I'm still going to count that as a win, because it was only two books. That means I now have...

130 books

...to read. That breaks down to:

8 samples or excerpts.

11 children's or middle grade books.

6 books that I've already started or finished reading.

and 105 books that are just waiting for me to open them up in the first place. 

So my numbers are growing instead of shrinking like they're supposed to, which means that my feedback percentage is getting even worse, and it was already abysmal. I didn't even finish a Netgalley book in December, although I did make some progress on two of them. I actually thought that I'd left my Kindle Paperwhite on the airplane we took from Germany to Atlanta because of that progress (I used my Paperwhite during takeoff, but then switched to a book I had on my phone to read during the rest of the flight, put the Paperwhite in a different pocket of my carryon than before, and didn't remove it when we had to go back through security at the airport in Atlanta). I didn't lose the Paperwhite though, just had myself worried about it for a few hours on the car ride to my parents house.

Physical Books

I didn't see any change in my physical book ARCs again this past month. That means I still have...

6 children's books

and 5 not-children's chapter books

...to read. This is one category that may start to change more regularly now that I'm back in the states. At some point when I get things under control for myself, I'd really like to develop a relationship with at least one of the Big 6 publishers to get on an ARC list like a real proper blogger. But for now, there was no change because I did not get even the kid's books read and reviewed before the mover's packed up our house. I did find room for them in one of our kids suitcases however, so they will not be languishing in boxes until my husband finds us a house. I'm not guaranteeing that I'll be getting them read and reviewed with my children before then, but they at least have a chance. The chapter books are in boxes on a boat right now, so they won't see the light of day until we have a house of our own again. But I have so many books to read for review right now, that I'm honestly not too worried about that to begin with. 

So that's where I'm at. My numbers are just getting worse so far, potentially proving that I really don't possess a shame gene at all. At the same time, I started this meme while heading into a major life upheaval so it wasn't exactly ideal conditions in the first place. Maybe we should just wait and see how I'm doing in like June before we decide conclusively that I can't even shame myself into whittling down my Netgalley hole, okay? Great. 

So my goal for January, which is already halfway over, is to try to review at least one of the children's books, get the reviews written for the Netgalley books that I've finished but not yet reviewed, and read one of my 2018 release ARCs. It's definitely doable if I can just commit. And I'll let you know in a couple weeks how I did. - Katie