There are undoubtedly many reading trackers out there and all of them are wonderful to help you keep track of your reading, but something that I’ve always noticed is that there aren’t many that are specifically designed for you to track the diversity in your reading. A lot of reading trackers will have something about diversity but it often feels like it’s tacked on at the end. Or maybe it’s a recent addition to a spreadsheet that’s just been updated through the years. That’s all honestly amazing and I’m so glad that we’re moving in that direction but I want reading trackers that are a bit more.
Since Bookish Brews is all about diversity in stories, it only made sense that I would design one here! I’ve designed this reading tracker to work with any reading challenges that you plan to do this year and it’s also designed to be customizable so you can keep track of whatever kind of representation that matters to you.
The Diversity Reading Tracker
If this sounds like something that you’re looking for, it’s free and just for you!
There’s more information and screenshots below, but if you’re ready: Enter your email below, check your email (& spam), and confirm your subscription. From there, you should be redirected straight to the diversity tracker. Then you can go to File > Make a Copy. That’s it! Start tracking your own books!
If you have any trouble, please email contact@bookishbrews.com and I’ll help you out
Table of Contents
Features of the Diversity Reading Tracker
This spreadsheet is going to have many features that you can use to track your reading progress but my main goal here is that you only have to edit one page consistently. A page that isn’t too overwhelming. A lot of reading trackers that I’ve tried over the years track a lot of things that are super helpful but I find myself not tracking as often because there are just so many data points to log for each book. I tried to make this as straightforward as possible for you.
So here’s the data entry page:
Once you begin logging your books, there are a few pages that will begin logging statistics for you. Here’s a preview of all the statistics it gathers!
Statistics
In the ‘Statistics’ tab of the reading tracker, you can see a snapshot of all the books that you’ve read. You can see a breakdown of how diverse your reading was across genres and representations. You can also see a breakdown of which months you had the most time to dedicate to reading (aka read more books!)
DNF Counters
I’ve included not only percentages for how many books you’ve read under each representation & genre category but I’ve also included a DNF (did not finish) counter. I have two hopes with the DNF counts here:
My first hope is that you may discover which genres you don’t like as much as you think you do. And conversely, which genres you like more than you thought you did.
My second hope (and this one is far more important) is that you use the DNF counter by representation to recognize which books you’re not finishing most often. I hope that if you find a pattern in your DNF books, you can use it as a starting point to start asking yourself why you aren’t finishing certain books more often than others. I hope that this gives you a springboard to start internally investigating if it’s a bias you hadn’t recognized before. We’re all growing and learning and I hope that this is a tool to help you grow!
Challenges
I wanted to make sure that your reading tracker was going to be compatible with reading challenges because you can definitely do both, so there’s a whole page dedicated to challenges. What’s cool about this one (and the next one I’ll show you) is that everything will populate automatically for you. Use the drop-down list to select your challenges and the sheet will populate with the books you’ve read that fit the challenge.
Representation by Genre
Similar to the DNF Counters that I’ve included in the ‘Statistics’ tab, I’ve created a tab where you can browse your diversity reading habits across genres. I think there’s a lot that we can learn when we start to look at our reading like this.
It’s possible that you notice that you only really read diverse books in a certain genre. It’s also possible that you notice how much of a struggle it is to find certain representations in certain genres. There may be a ton of diversity readily available to you in YA romance for example, but maybe not in high fantasy. Or the other way around!
I hope that this tab helps us start to investigate the intersection of diversity and genre in your reading.
DNF Tracker
Again, I wanted to make this spreadsheet as easy to use as possible. This DNF tracker will populate books that you mark as DNF so you don’t even have to touch it!
Graphs
This is another tab that you don’t need to touch. The graphs will populate automatically as you continue your reading journey. Since this is a diversity reading tracker, diversity representation is right at the top! We also have a breakdown of what you read every month to help you see what times you usually have more time to spend reading. And of course, a genre analysis!
Customizable Categories
The best part about this diversity reading tracker is that it’s fully customizable. I said I didn’t want you to have to edit too many things in order to use it, but this page is an “edit once and never have to change it again” tab. This tab is where you set up the things you want to track!
Everything that you put in these columns will end up in your dropdown lists on the data entry tab and your statistics will be calculated based on the categories that you put in these columns. If you want to track different genres than I put on here, feel free! If you need to add your reading challenges, this is where you do it! Do you want to have your ratings have half stars? Quarter stars?! Change them here! Everything in these columns is customizable and the entire spreadsheet will change based on the needs you put in this tab. A fully customizable reading tracker!
Download the Diversity Reading Tracker
Does this sound like it will fit your needs? Amazing! I hope that it’s useful for all of us to investigate our reading habits and to encourage us to read more diverse books. If you’re ready to start tracking your books, enter your email below to get your copy! You will be redirected to the tracker once you confirm your subscription (check your spam!).
If you have any trouble, feel free to email us at contact@bookishbrews.com
Diverse Book Recommendations
If you’re stumped on what books to choose to help you diversify your reading, you’re in the right place!! Bookish Brews focuses specifically on books written by people from systematically marginalized communities. That is to say: every single book on Bookish Brews will help you diversify your reading.
I recommend starting out by browsing our Featured Bookshelf. This page changes every single month with the best recent book releases so make sure to bookmark it! Let’s make a change together!!
