Well, I sort of plan. If I know I'm going away for a few days I'll choose to take something suitable. Or, if we're driving, shove four books in my bag and throw out the spare pair of shoes. I generally have some idea what I'm going to read for the next few months, but if I've got books reserved from the library that has to change when something comes in. Towards the end of last year I asked for book recs on DW's Fan Flashworks social post, which gave me four books I'd not tried, so those are what I plan to read next. As for completing the bingo - this is my first time, so I thought I'd read as normal until about the end of August, seeing which squares I had filled, and then be a bit more proactive after that. Or not, if I find something else I'm keen to read, because the one thing I do know is reading shouldn't be stressful.

Sounds like a great plan to me!

I did the same last year for my first bingo. I planned more seriously at the end of the year! It's a great compromise!

I'm also new to the challenge, and I'm crap at planning. But I read every day and have several TBR in my kindle, which I can read on my phone, so. I'll read through those, and maybe later look deliberately for squares. The ebook I just read fills several of them, so I have to think which I want to claim.

It's not always easy to decide when you read a book that can fill more than one square!

I don’t plan because I have no idea what I’m going to be in the mood for. I read so many different genres. I belong to a book club in my hometown and we meet once a month so I have to read those books. Other than that I just go to the library and choose or take friend recommendations.

Having said I vaguely plan, I've just spotted a book a friend read on Goodreads, thought it looked interesting, checked the library website and they have it available at my local library, so guess where my plans are going ...

I have three books going at a time--one electronic that I can take anywhere, one for bedtime reading, and one for general reading. But my system on what I read next makes me sound insane, lol.

My TBR pile is large. Currently 836 physical books (according to my database where I track everything, because it's the only way to guarantee I don't double-purchase a book) and 276 books on my Kindle. I have two large barristers in my bedroom for my TBR pile but not everything fits so the rest are stacked in my closet. The most recent purchases go on the bottom (so I'm not constantly reading new stuff and old stuff languishes). In the barristers, I have books sorted into five different categories (nonfiction, MMPB romance, MMPB genre, trade PB romance, and all the rest of the fiction).

And if this doesn't make me sound crazy already, I have a randomizer program I use to pull a book from a category, rotating through the categories as I finish/DNF a book. Then I fill the holes with something from the closet. I use something similar for the virtual shelves on my Kindle. The only exception to this is I have a separate section of books by authors I love/series I'm following. That's my bedtime reading.

All of this is to say...I don't really know 2/3s of what I'm going to be reading next. My plan for this challenge is to see how well I can fill squares using my usual methodology until September, and if my card isn't filled, I'll start making deliberate choices from my TBR pile rather than randomizing it.

Wow! That high-level planning!

I tentatively plan.

I usually print the card with the list of categories on the back, and then also print a separate list of the categories. I then go through the books I have and write (with a pencil) in ones that would work for some of the squares. These are not set in stone, though. They can--and often do--change during the course of a year. This is just to give me an idea.

Once I finish a book, I write it in (in pen) on the list that's on the back of the bingo card.

It's more or less what I do in my Bullet Journal!

I made selections for most of the categories in a Google spreadsheet, but have already changed several of them. :) At first I was going to try to align most of the categories with my Popsugar Reading Challenge selections, then realized that this would be a good opportunity to read more of the books in my TBR pile and Audible library that don't fit into the Popsugar challenge - or I had multiple options there.

I'm starting with a book I was reading before I started this challenge that fits into it and will probably make my next pick with one of the surrounding squares.

Oh! Going for a bingo directly, then! interesting!

I flexibly planned.
I went through my 'want to read' list and picked out books that matched the bingo card. However, I've already changed a few as I've been reading since I've picked up a few recommendations already. I may need a new book for a color book I finished last night since it had nearly as many pictures as words..for example.
As for what I read when, I started with a fun pick and some short picks. Library books first.
I have minions about regularly so I usually read what can be interrupted during the day such as poetry or non-fiction and I read books that suck me in at night.
I also read by my mood and the moods of the book itself. I thought I could read this one fantasy book last night but..it was darker than I anticipated so that's a day time read. Haha.

I'm for flexible planning, too! As I want to achieve a blackout and as I know I'll probably read 25-30 books, I need to plan a little.

I record all the books I'd like to read in Goodreads. From that list, I look which books could fit some of the squares. Then, for the others squares, I do it in reverse... I browse Goodreads looking for books that could fit the square I'm missing.

I write down my ideas on the page I created in my Bullet Journal to track my progress in the challenge.



But nothing is set in stone and I keep some freedom to change my mind! ;-)

As for what to read next, I often start to think about it a little ahead. I try to read the books I own first and then, I plan the budget to buy some more books. For example, at the moment, I'm reading the books I've received for Christmas and I have planned to order more books at the end of February!

Oh that's lovely.

I have a TBR pile (don't we all??) - so I'm trying to see which categories are going to be harder for me to hit than others - and trying to find books that match those categories, that I have on my pile.

If I find a book that I want to read Right Now and can't make it fit in another category, then it will fit in the Free Space or Ebook (since all my books are ebooks these days) - so while my goal is to use the board to pick my books until it's full - I have flexibility :D

I think a mix between planning and flexibility is a good way to go!

I don't generally plan much at the start. I read what I want and then try and see if it will fit in a square. Towards the end of the year I get a bit more strategic. Working out what squares are left and what I can read to fill the card.

I wouldn't say I plan all my reading around the bingo but last year I did just get the 25 books read. The year before I read a few extra that didn't go on the card.

Edited 2019-01-12 08:15 pm (UTC)

That’s how I work it too. I think I went the majority of the year with no bingo and then they all happened at once. lol

i use an app called workflowy to plan what i'm reading for which squares, and to keep track of my thoughts on the book as i read. it's a list that is subject to change based on my mood, but mostly i'm doing stuff i've been meaning to read for a while, so the closer to the bottom of my TBR the better.

https://workflowy.com/s/lj-book-bingo-2019/8BjEdKugOtRKF6mZ

i pick two squares to fill each month depending on where my interests lie at the time, and i usually read 2-3 books outside of the bingo as well. plus 1-2 audiobooks each month.

Edited 2019-01-12 08:43 pm (UTC)

Wow! What an impressive organisation!

Well, this is my first challenge, so things might be different later, but for now? I'm simply reading as I usually do. So far, I have had no problem with filling squares, as most of the books I read/will read could be filling more than one. What I do know is where my wild cards will go: I don't read Young adult, and I have never bought a book by its cover, so that was easy :P

Welcome! And I hope you enjoy the challenge.

I'm so not a planner when it comes to reading - the closest thing to a plan I have is I'm going to read books from my Mount TBR pile this year! or I'm going to read books for the lj bookbingo challenge... *g* I know I can fill up quite alot of squares from my TBR pile - and I know that there are other kinds of books that I don't really enjoy reading (biography/non-fiction, food writing) so that's where I'll probably use my wild cards and substitutions. Oh, and I know that I'll totally cheat and use lj book bingo as an excuse to buy more books if I see something I fancy in the bookshop that fits a square... Half my joy of reading is finding new things though, and adventuring my way around shelves of any kind. I read all sorts of genres and authors - and I re-read alot when things are stressful too. Planning seems more like turning the joy into a kind of work for me - reading is where I don't have to plan! I'm not nearly as interesting as some of the people above! *g*

The bingo is a great excuse to buy new books! lol, I do the same. I love finding new things to read although I have made a bit of a deal with myself that I will try to read off my bookshelf this year rather then buy any more.

I have to admit, I don't plan at all. I read a lot, I read widely, I trust to fate...

My planning goes like this. 1. find as many of the prompts on my own shelves (so I can move those books on out of here) 2. try to start with the books that fulfill two or more challenges if possible.

While that isn't hard on the surface, it does make getting a bingo more difficult because I'm reading all over the card instead of in a bingo sort of way

Last year, I didn't plan in the way to make a bingo neither... I just read what I wanted!

For this year, I think I'll try to think more about the bingos. For example, the book I'm reading now can fit three square and I think I'll choose the one next to a square I've already filled.

I mostly start with what I want to read the most first, and worry about a bingo later. I usually read three or four books at a time. One or two physical, one Kindle, and one audio, I get bored easily and so I like to switch between books at will and having so many different modes of reading a book means I am never without one.

I'm impressed by people who can read like that! *_*
I really struggle to read more than one book at a time. And when I do, one of the books is often an anthology of shorts stories so it's easy to interrupt your reading or it's reading a manga or a comic in between two chapters of the other book.

I pretty much have to plan if I want to bingo, as otherwise I'd read nothing but romance novels and fic.

This is my first time doing the bingo, and I also gave myself two other challenges: I have to read exclusively female authors, and the books have to be ones I already have, if at all possible. (Considering the size of my Kindle collection, this is not as daunting as it sounds.)

I make a paper list of all the categories, then fill in the book I plan to read, and make notes of possible alternatives in case the mood strikes or someone asks for recommendations. That way it's not set in stone, but some of the brainwork is done in advance and I don't have to be paralysed by my bookshelf.

Those sound like great challenges. I have challenged myself to only read what I already have as well! :D

I have a lot of books on my library's For Later shelf that I was going to sift through for this year's BINGO card but the first four books I've read have been from the New Arrivals and librarian recommendations shelves, so things are not going to plan so far :D

Isn't it always like that? I have all these plans to read what I already have on my selves and then a new book catches my eye! :D

First thing I did was go through my to be read pile and create a pile specifically for books that will fit a bingo square and then just picked whatever random one was on top to start reading. I do have a system with my books as I'm always reading more than one. When and where I read them tends to vary depending on the size of the book - I read a lot of non-fiction and they're often not easy to carry around the house with me!

Usually I'll have a bingo book on the go, plus one from my "recent" pile which is books I've bought for myself or been given in the last couple of years and then one from the bottom of my pile, so I'm sort of working from both ends as it were *g* I almost exclusively read kindle books when I'm travelling and I go through phases of stocking it up with free or cheap books that catch my eye so that tends to be quite a random selection of genres. It often happens that I'll realise a "non-bingo" book actually fits a square so I'll go ahead and use that and move the book I was originally going to use back into circulation to be read later.

Like last year I'll just keep reading whatever is next on my pile for the first six months (adding in the occasional book by one of the few authors I read the minute they publish something new) and then see where that gets me. I read pretty widely anyway and I'm also trying to read 100 books again this year so I won't really worry about a blackout or anything until the last few months of the year.

I generally try to go through my to-be-read pile in alphabetical order by author, while being frequently distracted by new books, book club etc. I do the Mount TBR challenge each year, and once I've gotten 12 books knocked off, then I start going through whichever challenge I'm closest to finishing and ticking that off.



Edited 2019-01-15 03:40 pm (UTC)

Oh yes, I definitely plan! In fact, as soon as I'd posted my new card, I made a quick hand-drawn copy of it, so I can tick things off as I've read them, ad remind myself what I still have to read even when I'm not online! Oh, and I've also started making lists of books that I want to read which would fit particular squares, and noting when a book might also fit more than one category so I can see where I've got potential overlap...

That said, I did the same last year, and in several cases I ended up reading something *completely* different for some squares than what I had originally thought of. So I definitely plan, but that doesn't mean I'm going to rigidly stick to it as the year goes on.