2023 is the year that I finally get my owned TBR under control. Yes, you read that right: I am embarking on a year-long adventure to read more of what I own, and I’d love for you to join me in the Reader Voracious Project Backlist Reading Challenge!
Project Backlist was made available to Reader Voracious patrons early! This Reading Challenge will always be free, but if you’d like to support me and receive early post access, the ability to make requests, and more perks for as little as $2 a month!
As inflation soars and salaries remain stagnant, it’s time to put myself on a soft book buying ban for 2023 and focus on reading the books I already own. I want to feel rejuvenated and fulfilled by reading again, rather than shackled by the weight of my own expectations.
The Project Backlist Reading Challenge
This endeavor has been more than a year in the making, inspired by the fact that I am nearly out of room on my WALL. OF. BOOKSHELVES. and don’t have additional space in my apartment for additional bookshelves. It was the push I needed to finally buckle down and get to work on the task at hand: read my books. Seriously, it is stressing me out.
The goal of Project Backlist is easy: read your owned TBR. Where this challenge differs from others is you decide the details of your challenge. This challenge is deliberately built in a way that everyone can join the community and build the challenge to meet their specific goals.
Potential Reading Challenge Goals
Project Backlist is what you make of it based on your own needs and no matter the ways you decide to participate, there will be a community of readers there with you every step of the way. Below are a few Project Backlist goal suggestions (each comes with an unlockable badge!) but feel free to create your own goals as well!
- Slow Haul: Read 3 owned books for every 1 new book purchased
- Completionist: Reach an 80% read rate for your owned books
- Committed Reader: Read an owned book a week (or a month)
- Cold Turkey: Book Buying Ban or an ARC Ban
- ARCrastinator: Clear overdue ARC list
- or create your own goal!
📊 Need help tracking your challenge? Download the FREE Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template!
Reading Challenge Badges
Project Backlist Reading Challenge Participant Badge
Sign up to officially join the reading challenge to earn the participant badge!
Reading Challenge badges will be awarded to participants when completed via a self-reporting form and is on the honor system. Email and Discord announcements will provide reminders to submit progress approximately 3-4 times in the year.
Sign Up to Participate in Project Backlist
2023 is going to be an exciting year of reading and community, and I’d love to have you join us for Project Backlist!
Sign up to participate in 2023’s Project Backlist by completing the registration form. Participants will receive irregular (probably once every or every other month) updates and check-ins via email. The Nerd Voraciously discord server has a role for participants and a special area dedicated to all things Project Backlist.
💖 If you like the work that I do here at Reader Voracious, consider fueling my pumpkin spice latte and black tie addiction by buying me a ko-fi or joining my Patreon! ☕
Let’s Chat!
I hope you’re as excited as I am for this new challenge and community activity! What are YOUR goals going to be? Do you have any badge suggestions? Let’s chat Project Backlist in the comments!
This is the absolutely perfect reading challenge for me! I was going to start a new goal/series for myself relating to my out of control NetGalley arcs and that I have so many new books even though I’ve unhauled so many in the past couple of years. I totally signed up and hopefully it’ll help me get things under control! lol.
That’s a great challenge! I really need to check into this. I love how you can create your own goal. This might be the challenge for me. I have decided that 2023 is the year that I get my NetGalley under control. When Covid came, I quit my job and started watching my grandchildren. My reading took a major hit and it declined. Not for the lack of trying but lack of time, getting myself organized for this new position, and keeping these boys entertained and challenged. Well, 2023 I have vowed to get myself back into reading and get my NetGalley account back where it should be. I have to do this!!
Oh, I can’t commit to any of these. But every so often I do a Shelf Control post where I pick an unread book from my shelf and decide if I’m going to keep hold of it to read in the future, or get rid of it to the nearest free public library. I’ve given away 6 books that way this past year!
I absolutely will be looking into this! I need a fun challenge to clear out my TBR.
This is so exciting! I deleted my TBR in the hopes of focusing on my owned TBR, so this is the perfect challenge.
This is a great plan! Best of luck with your backlist reading. I’m going to try to read backlist books also—but for me it is both books that I own and books that I don’t, because I want to get my older TBR books off the list.
This sounds like a great challenge and I would LOVE participate! I really need to get my Netgalley and physical TBR under control and I think this is just the perfect motivation I needed to work on that!
Thank you so much for this! 🤍 all the best with you own challenge 😊
Ah Kal I absolutely adore this challenge! Whilst I don’t think my TBR is too out of hand, it’s definitely got room for improvement. Hopefully I’ll be able to have read 80% or more of my owned books by the end of next year! I think another goal I’ll add to it will be to read some of the backlist books I’ve been saying I will for years but just haven’t gotten round to. Mainly because I didn’t own physical copies of them but eBooks and libraries are wonderful things, so maybe my goals will be ‘Reach an 80% read rate for your owned books’ and ‘Read 5 backlist books (at least) that have been on my TBR for a year or more’.
Thank you so much for putting this together Kalkal, here’s to us trying to get a hold of our TBRs next year! 💜
This is such a great Reading Challenge! I’ve been working on tackling my owned TBR, so I’ll definitely join 🥰 I need to read some of the books that have been on my TBR for ages next year 🙏🏻
I have been seeing challenges like this one all over the book community for 2023. I think 2023 will be the year to tackle our owned books haha
I’m in for the slow haul! Slow and steady seems the best way for me to tackle my backlist. I’ve started in 2022 and will continue in 2023 with a mix of backlist books and some new books that I really can’t resist.
What a great idea for a challenge! I’m caught up on my owned TBR but I know many others aren’t. Wishing you much success on this challenge.
Such a good challenge! I started using my library way more during the last year, and will continue with that. I have 9 books on hold, some with 6 months wait, but I don’t mind. They have quite a good selection of audio books.
So excited for this Challenge! I do appreciate the effort that has gone in to creating the different levels. I’m going for the Slow Haul this year. Here’s my signup post https://ko-fi.com/post/Project-Backlist-Reading-Challenge-N4N4HEQZH
I love the idea and highly endorse it! There’s nothing more satisfying than getting through the books we already own. I wish I could do more of it and faster myself haha Happy reading and happy new year! 😀
Kal, you have no idea how much I need this. Thanks for organizing!
I’d already decided one of my main goals this year would be to read less ARCs and more off my existing shelves, so this is the perfect challenge for me. And I love the flexibility! It will work well with my other reading challenges, too. Thank you for organizing this, Kal!