Why I’m Downsizing My Book Collection in 2020
I have too many books. I’ve known this for quite a while. It’s a problem I’ve been dealing with but I didn’t know exactly what to do about it, it’s also a problem that I think a lot of readers and writers tend to get if they aren’t careful.
Freud once said that the only thing more addicting then nicotine was book collecting. I’ve found that you can always find a reason to keep a book, maybe you’re going to read it, read it again, or maybe use it for research for something else.
But, the ugly truth at least for me is that if I’ve put off reading something for a long time I’m probably never going to actually do it. I rarely if ever re-read things unless they’re Louis L’amour books, Conan, or happens to be the Count of Monte Cristo. And lastly, I’ve found that I almost never need an entire 300-400 page book to do research. There’s too much readily available on the internet that will give me the answer I need without taking up space in my house.
It didn’t help that I used to sell books online for a living as an Amazon reseller. Once I stopped I had thousands of books not to mention even more that I’d pulled out as ones that I thought I should keep. And before I realized it, I’d basically buried myself in books.
When I moved from Richmond last March I took out over 14 boxes of mostly books from my 400sqft studio apartment. Many were on shelves, but my shelves were overflowing. And since I plan on traveling more this year, and more than likely moving out of Virginia at some point I don’t want to have to keep lugging all of that stuff with me.
My main plan is to switch to mostly ebooks. Many of the books I used to collect westerns, men’s adventure, and old horror paperbacks are all getting a resurgence and there are tons of re-releases every month. I’ll probably make a list of publishing houses that are doing this later on so that if you are like me you too can find the books you’re looking for and support efforts of these publishers.
I’m still going to collect physical forms of some things, but just not as much going forward.
I’ve already gotten rid of several boxes some I donated, other stuff I gave away, and some I’ve been lucky enough to sell. But, I’ve still got a lot to go. Some of the hardest to get rid of have been books on the craft, it’s easy to convince yourself that you need ten books on writing. But, I’ve now realized the more time I spend reading about writing is less time that I’m actually writing. Which has made them easier to start letting go of.
It’s my goal by the end of 2020 to have less than 100 or so books. Juries still out on whether or not this will happen but so far I’m off to a good start.
