My goal for 2023 was to read fewer books than I have in the past few years. The reason? I need to write more.

To help manage my time, I set a new standard for reading books: if it doesn’t grab my attention in the first 1-2 chapters, I walk away. When I say “grab my attention,” I mean I can’t stop thinking about it and can’t wait to get back to the book. In the past, I’ve given books 50-100 pages to do this. Maybe it’s my age (or maybe it’s the ridiculous number of unread books in my office and on my Kindle), but I decided to be more selective this year.

Why?

I’m not interested in the mediocre books. I want to read the good ones.

I might occasionally still post some DNF reviews, but those are books where I read about 100 pages before calling it quits (and going to the last few chapters to see how it ended). With the new 1-2 chapter standard, I can eliminate several books per day, and I don’t want spend that much time creating posts about books I didn’t invest in. Besides, just because the book didn’t grab me doesn’t me it won’t grab you.

I realize this is a completely subjective standard. I’m okay with it. I hope every author can be okay with that–not every book works for every reader. Please, be nice and move on.

I’ve already met my reading goal for 2023, so I think I’m going to take the next month off to finish writing my next manuscript. And while I do that, I have a friend helping me create a fun way to track reading adventures for 2024–I hope you’ll consider joining me!

How long do you give a book before you walk away?