eReader How To: Organize Your eBooks!

I was recently contacted by Guest Post U, a company that creates guest posts for blogs.  They asked to write a sample post for my blog to help promote their site and their incredible free services.  I agreed to let them write up something ebook related for you guys... so here it is!  Robyn and Josh from GPU are here to talk about sorting ebooks on your eReader.  They have several very good ideas and tips about organizing and making your ebook collection much more efficient.  Let me know in the comments what you think of the post.

Four Different Ways of Organizing E-Reader eBooks

Photo from The Ebook eReader

E-readers are becoming quite popular nowadays.  Some people use them because they feel that e-readers are more friendly toward the environment than are traditional books. Some simply use them for ease and convenience, while others do not have enough storage space in their home for hundreds of hardcovers.  These e-readers generally allow people to organize their ebooks into categories.  What are some ideas for doing so?

1. Genre

One of the most popular ways to organize ebooks is by genre.  You can have separate lists for science fiction, romance, comedy and so forth.  If you're going to use this method, it's important to remember under which genre your favorite ebooks fall, so you can easily find them when you want to.  Sometimes, ebooks can be a blend of a couple of genres.  For this purpose, you many want to consider creating an "other" category. 

2. Author
When you read a lot of ebooks by the same author, you can categorize them into groups based upon who wrote them.  No matter where you are, you can pull up an excellent read by your favorite writer in the literary field.  However, if you don't really stick to certain authors, you may want to avoid this idea. Imagine that you read ebooks by 200 different authors and try to categorize them all.  You would wind up with an overwhelming amount of groups!   If you do decide to follow this option, be sure to create an "other" category for works that are written by two or more authors.

3. Person
Let's say that you share an e-reader with a spouse, sibling, parent or other person in your life. You're each always complaining that the other individual downloads way too many ebooks, and you are never able to find yours. Create separate categories for the two of you.  You could even break down them more.  For example, your categories might be along the lines of "John's Favorites," "John-Science Fiction," "Jane's Favorites by Mark Twain" and "Jane's Books of Poetry."  Do you have ebooks that you both love to read? Well then, start a collection called "Books We Both Love."

4. Stars
Perhaps after you read a book, you like to assign it a number of stars based on how good you thought it was and how much you enjoyed it.  Why not organize the ebooks by the number of stars then?  You'll be able to easily access your favorites at any time, and you will also be reminded of the ebooks that you did not enjoy so much.  In some ways, this process is much like ranking the ebooks.  However, you do not need to drive yourself mad ranking every book from one into infinity.

Making collections and categories on your e-reader is a fairly simple process. (Click here for help! HilyBee has a tutorial for the Kindle.)  Once it's done, it allows you to have a clean library of novels instead of a confusing mess of ebooks.  Choose a method with which you are most comfortable.  Remember, it is always important to have that "Other" category for ebooks that do not quite fit into any of your other headings.

Robyn Gandolfini likes to write about technology, read & compare insurance.  (This is not a spam link, I promise!)  Thank you so much Robyn and GPU for the tips!  Happy Sorting!!