Tips to Organise Your Book Collection Like a Pro

If you’re not careful, your love of books can soon take over your home! A once neatly stacked bookcase can soon become a sprawling mass of books, turned this way and that. If this sounds familiar, it might be time to organise your book collection.

Tidying up your book collection will clear space, make your home look neater and keep your books in pristine condition. It might seem like a mammoth task, but don’t worry - we’ve got some tips to make it easier!

1. Sift Through Your Book Collection

The first step to organising your book collection is to get them all off the shelves. It’s very easy to shove a book on the shelf and forget all about it. Take this opportunity to see exactly what you’ve got and decide whether to keep, donate or sell your books. Whilst it can be hard to get rid of books, try to adopt the rationale that if you’re not going to read it again, donating or selling it will give someone else the chance to read it for the first time.

If you decide to sell your books, there are plenty of options out there including Facebook Marketplace, eBay and us! Here at WeBuyBooks, we like to make selling your books as quick and easy as possible. All you have to do is enter the ISBN code or scan the barcode on our app and we’ll give you an instant price. Then, you can post it to us for free or arrange a free collection from your home - that way you don’t even have to leave the house! You can sell your books to us here.

2. Alphabetical Order

Now you’re ready to start organising, the simplest and most obvious way to organise your book collection is in alphabetical order. You don't have to use the author’s name, you could use the book’s title instead if you find that easier to remember.

If you do choose to organise your books in alphabetical order, there are still ways to make it look as nice and neat as possible. You don’t have to follow alphabetical order to the letter (pun intended). Instead, if a shelf is A-C, you could still organise by size or colour within that letter range. You should still be able to find your books easily, but they’ll look a bit more appealing to the eye.

3. By Colour

We’ve all seen the photos. Organising your bookcase by colour is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing way to store your books. A row of rich reds fading into light, sunset oranges; beautiful.

And it’s not just pretty, but practical. It’s a great way to organise your books if you’re visually minded and recall the cover before you remember the title. It may be more time-consuming as you spend an hour debating whether a book is more midnight blue or navy blue, but it’ll be worth it.

4. By Genre

This one’s for the librarians out there. Organising your books by genre means that you can find a book that matches your mood. You don’t have to follow the Dewey Decimal system: organise by the genres that make the most sense to you. Fancy a fantasy? Game of Thrones is right there. Or maybe you’re in the mood for a murder? Your true-crime shelf is stocked with the biographies of the most brutal and bloody murderers out there. Or how about a guilty pleasures shelf full of all your teen self’s favourites? Twilight? Don’t worry, we won’t tell.

5. By Usage

Another practical way to organise your book collection is by usage. Put all your favourite books together, so you can easily find them every time you fancy falling back into your favourite story. Another tip for keen readers is to keep all your new books together too. That way they don’t get pushed to the back and forgotten about.

6. Styling Tips

Two-thirds rule - you should ideally leave two-thirds of your bookcase empty. This may be hard for bibliophiles to accept, but overstuffing your bookcase can make a bookshelf look unruly and overwhelm the room. Leaving space allows the viewer to take it all in.

Add in some accessories - where there’s space, add in photos, art, trinkets and special items. After all, your bookcase tells a story about who you are; it should have some personal touches.

70:30 rule - another rule that interior stylists suggest is storing 70% of books vertically, whilst the remaining 30% are stacked horizontally. This again prevents overstuffing and breaks it up visually.

Hopefully, these tips have given you some ideas on how to organise your books. Happy organising!