This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read my full disclosure policy here.
Do you set reading goals? If you want to know what my 2022 reading goals are, keep reading!
I’m always incredibly impressed when people come out with lists of goals for a new year at the very beginning of January (or at the end of December!). I am thinking about my reading for a particular year and actually physically doing the reading for that year right up until the very last second, so I really don’t start to process the past year or think about what I want for the year ahead until we’ve gotten to January!
When I posted about my 2021 goals last year, I made a joke about how it was the end of February already, but the truth is I’m never going to be a person who is ready to post goals for the year in the first few days of January. I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about my reading last year, if I felt the goals I set last year were actually useful for me, and what I might want from the year ahead when it comes to my reading life. I was watching a YouTube video recently and the creator said that no one is their best self in January, and I honestly agree with that. As delayed as it seems to most of the world, I think I’m always going to be a person who shares goals for the year ahead in February, after a January filled with reflection. (Honestly, I’m impressed with myself for writing these down at the BEGINNING of February-already an improvement!-LOL this post has been sitting in my drafts for almost an entire month and I am once again posting at the VERY END of February). Anyway, enough talking about goals in the abstract-let’s talk about what I’ll be trying to do this year!
Reading Goals
Last year, when this blog was very new, I was focused only on sharing what I wanted to do in relation to reading itself. Now that I have several avenues for sharing my thoughts on reading, I want to think about goals for those as well. But before we get to those, here are the reading-specific goals for 2022.
50% of books read written by BIPOC authors
My goal last year was to have at least 50% of books read written by marginalized authors-within this categorization I included BIPOC authors, queer authors, disabled authors, etc. While I do think it is important to consider all types of marginality when seeking out new voices (and that will be reflected in other goals), this year I want to be incredibly intentional about reading and promoting BIPOC authors, so I want to make sure that at least 50% of the books I read this year are written by BIPOC authors, full stop. Although I’m not going to break that down further, I will say that reflecting on prior years’ reading has shown me that, for whatever reason, I do tend to gravitate toward Asian authors (possibly because Asian is such a broad category that there are many, many different types of representation), so I want to work toward increasing representation by other authors, especially Latinx and Indigenous authors, this year.
As I did in 2021, one of the things I’ll be doing to help me with this goal is using the US “history/heritage” months to guide my reading. While I certainly will seek out books by all marginalized authors throughout the year, I will be reading only books by Black authors in February, books by Asian/Pacific Islander authors in May, books by Latinx authors in September/October, and books by Indigenous authors in November (I know there are other history/heritage months as well, but this is the commitment I feel I can make).
Read more Middle Grade books
In 2021, only about 10% of the books I read were middle grade books. Middle grade, as an age category, has exploded over the past decade or so, with tons of high quality books. Despite this, I still don’t feel there are as many people promoting MG as, for example, YA, and, alongside this, I don’t tend to seek it out unless I am ready to buy books for the library, at which point it becomes overwhelming. So, given that there are so many great middle grade books out there, and given that a significant population of my students are middle grade readers, I definitely want to be better about reading more middle grade. Rather than setting myself a quota, I am going to devote a month to middle grade, much as I do for Black History Month, etc. And it turns out that some other members of the book community have already devoted the month of March to reading middle grade, so I’m going to jump on that bandwagon! (Also, yes, I realize that March is Women’s History Month and I could be using that time to read only books by women authors, but that’s generally not a problem for me.)
ANYWAY, rambling aside, I will be focused on reading more middle grade books this year, specifically in the month of March! (Also, if you, like me, want to read more middle grade AND want to read more Black authors during the month of February, why not check out this giant list of middle grade books by Black authors?)
Continue to diversify the genres and formats I read in YA/MG books
One of my goals last year was to read more books from some of my personal lesser-read genres, specifically one fantasy, one sci-fi, and one nonfiction book a month. This was…moderately successful. However, in looking at the genre breakdown of my reading from last year, I noticed that while I did increase my reading in those genres (perhaps not as much as I would have liked, but nonetheless, there was an increase), I read one single, solitary historical fiction book for the ENTIRE year, as well as only one graphic novel! Also, despite my great love of cozy mysteries, I only read 18 total YA/MG mystery/thriller books. I know that mysteries/thrillers/scary books are super popular amongst my students, as are graphic novels, so that’s reason enough for me to be more intentional about reading those genres/formats. I also feel like my own personal hatred of the very specific subgenre of historical fiction centered around World War II has led me to eschew the genre in general, which really isn’t fair. So, I would like to set some specific numerical goals for these genres, as follows:
- 12 sci-fi books
- 12 nonfiction books
- 12 historical fiction books
- 12 graphic novels
- 30 fantasy books
- 30 mystery/thriller/scary books
Additionally, going along with the goals I mentioned above, I would like to make sure that 50% of the books in each of these categories are a) written by BIPOC authors and b) middle grade. Is this too ambitious? WE SHALL SEE.
Be more intentional about intersectionality
As I mentioned earlier, one of my 2021 goals was to read 50% of books by marginalized authors, and I did that. However, in looking at the books I read during Pride month, during which I read only books by queer authors, I noticed that the books I chose during this month were SUPER WHITE. Does this mean I’m going to forego books by white authors, even if I really want to read them? Of course not. But I absolutely want to seek out books by people with intersecting marginalities (Black and queer, Indigenous and disabled, Latinx and fat, etc. etc. etc.) because I haven’t been as tuned in to this in the past. I am not going to set a specific numerical goal for this, but I will be more intentional in my choices, and hopefully next year’s reflection post will show success in this arena.
Seek out books by disabled authors
In 2021, when I created a goal of reading more marginalized authors, I was absolutely including disabled authors in this group. However, if you read my 2021 reflections post, you may have noticed that I did not mention disabled authors at all. And that is because I truly did not make an effort to read books by disabled authors last year, and I am incredibly disappointed in myself for that. Does it take extra work to seek out these books, and to make sure you’re finding books written by disabled authors, and not able-bodied people writing about people with disabilities? Yes, certainly. But is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY. I’m going to start small, and look to read 12 books by disabled authors, approximately 1 per month. But I’m hopeful that in the future books by disabled authors, along with BIPOC and queer authors, will be plentiful enough that finding 12 won’t seem like a daunting task.
Create and maintain an actual, physical reading journal
I love reading bullet journals. I think they are so pretty, and I could spend literal hours watching reading journal flip throughs on YouTube. Yet I cannot get myself to commit to making my own, no matter how many notebooks I buy! (Spoiler: IT’S TOO MANY NOTEBOOKS.) So I figure if I write it in a blog post and make it an actual goal, maybe I will actually follow through and make my own journal (even though it’s already February and therefore I’m 2 months behind!). Is this the goal I am most likely to fail at completing? PROBABLY. But I brought a notebook and some pretty pens all the way across the ocean to my new home, so it would perhaps be a good idea to actually use them.
Read adult fantasy
This is my last reading-specific goal, and it’s also probably a stretch goal. Although I finally got out of my fantasy reading slump in 2021, the vast majority of the books I read in this genre were YA and MG (I think I read 1 adult fantasy book last year). There have been a number of adult fantasy books that have come out in the last few years that seem really interesting or that have been beloved by some of my favorite bookternet people, but, I’m not going to lie, ADULT FANTASY INTIMIDATES ME. It already takes me longer to read SFF books, even YA ones, so how long is it going to take me to read an adult fantasy book that’s like a million pages long?!?! Nonetheless, I want to try. I have 3 books in particular I want to read this year (Jade City, The Poppy War, and The City We Became), and I am hoping that my continued Book of the Month membership will help me discover a few more, for a total of 5 adult fantasy books this year (yes, I know that’s a comically small number. SHUT UP. I’M TRYING.).
Ms. G in the Library Goals
When I wrote my 2021 goals post, this blog was only about a month old, and my only goal for it was to, you know, write in it. As we know, that kind of went off the rails about halfway through the year, but hey, it’s a new year, and maybe I can be consistent in 2022. So here are some goals related to this blog and other avenues for sharing bookish content.
Consistently post at least once per week
Writing blog posts takes a significant amount of time, especially when you consider the additional non-writing stuff that goes into each post as well (adding links, images, creating pins, etc.). But I think once per week is a manageable amount, not too overwhelming. I have a whole list of ideas I’d like to share, everything from book lists to library activities to the pros and cons of reading so many books a year, I just have to sit down and actually WRITE them. Would this be easier if I actually sat down and made myself a schedule? Probably. Am I going to do that? WE SHALL SEE.
Grow the Ms. G in the Library YouTube Channel
Surprise, I started a YouTube channel! This was something I had always planned to announce in a blog post, but, you know, then I stopped posting (because if you can’t consistently write blog posts, why shouldn’t you add another commitment for another form of content creation?!) Anyway, much like this here blog, the YouTube channel is something I have difficulty with maintaining on a consistent basis. Right now, it is infinitesimal, and that’s okay with me-I need to get better at video stuff, and editing, but I would eventually like to figure out how to grow the channel and get more followers and views. I’d like to say it’s a goal to meet the monetization threshold-as in 1000 followers and 4000 hours of views-in 2022, but honestly that’s a huge pipe dream, and probably laughable. Nonetheless, I’m going to leave that here as a numerical goal, but I will be happy with any level of growth (also, if you like BookTube and want some new content, why not go follow me? Perhaps there will even be a new video for you to watch soon!).
Find a way to make some money from this hobby
Right now, this blog and my YouTube channel are both teeny, tiny little blips on the internet-I haven’t devoted a lot of time and effort to turning them into things that could make a profit, because that was never really my goal-it’s always been more about sharing my love of books and making more friends in the bookish community. However, it does take a lot of time and effort to write posts and make videos and do all of the things that go along with that, so if I could somehow get some $$$$ for that labor I wouldn’t be opposed. I realize that generating ad revenue from either this blog or the YouTube channel are a long way off, if they happen at all, but there are other ways to make some income, and I would like to explore those. I am already a Bookshop affiliate (so if you click on any of the links in my posts that go to the Bookshop website and then end up buying the book, I make a tiny bit of money), but I would like to get enough pageviews that joining other affiliate programs would make sense. I would also like to explore perhaps selling products that could be fun or helpful for other readers or librarians (I do have a RedBubble account with a few bookish, and a few non-bookish, products, if you have the same weirdly specific pop culture interests as me and are looking for new sticker in your life). Anyway, long story short, I’m not someone who thinks I can suddenly turn my blog or YouTube channel into a career but I wouldn’t mind a little extra cash.
Well, there you have it-my probably too long list of goals for 2022. Tell me-what are your goals for the year, reading-related or otherwise?
Looking for more? Check out these posts:
Want to save this post for later? Pin it:
