To kick off a proper decluttering effort in your home, it only makes sense to start with a group of possessions that you truly love. For me, and for many of the people I know, that would be the books filling my bookshelves.

Decluttering experts say that it’s a good strategy to jump right into your most treasured household stuff while you are fresh to the project. Based on my experience, the farther you get into decluttering you’re either going to toss everything in the trash or start procrastinating.

Beginning your decluttering efforts with your books will help to establish a decluttering/curating-memories process that will serve you well throughout your home.

Even if you are a committed library, Libby and Audible user as I am now, I’d be willing to bet that over the years you have still accumulated more books than you want to keep in your home!

Here’s how I suggest decluttering books and bookshelves. 

GETTING STARTED – DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Before you can whittle down and organize your personal library, you’ll need to consider dividing your books into these 3 categories:

1. Books you treasure and want to keep, possibly for future generations
2. Books that you no longer want, but someone else would enjoy and can be given away
3. Books that you no longer want and aren’t relevant or you don’t believe would bring enjoyment or value to someone else

Now it’s time to make a mess. 

Depending on whether you are going to work through this process quickly (over a few days) or need to spread it out longer – choose a good place to sort and store your books while you are working with them.

Depending on how many books you have, find some boxes and/or bags and start the sorting process. I’ve elaborated on each of the 3 categories, so keep reading. ⬇️
 

CATEGORY ONE – THE BOOKS YOU TREASURE

This category, in my opinion, is the whole reason why it’s worth your time to declutter your personal library.

No matter how many books you’ve bought through the years, I imagine that only a small fraction of them have really impacted your life. When I talk about impact, I’m referring to a range from life changing all the way to just a really good read. But you still loved it and couldn’t stop thinking about it for days after you read the last page.

These are the books that you can designate as important enough to you that you will keep them in your home for now.

To help with designating these special books, I’ve designed a Legacy Library Insert Card that you can place in these books. The foldover card can hang on one of the first few pages in your book.

You and your family can quickly see some details like the year you read the book, why it is important to you, and (optional) the name of someone you think would enjoy it, too. 

Go here to find out more about my Legacy Library Insert Cards and, if you want, to purchase a printable download or editable template from my shop. 

To sum up, the Books You Treasure category books will be those that are 

1. Valuable enough to you to keep in your home and occupy some precious space, and
2. Will be left in your home after you’ve died for your family to either keep or give away, but with them still knowing why they were precious to you.

But what if there are some books that you really love but still don’t want to keep them in your home library?

In that case I have the perfect solution. Place that book in a sunny spot on a plain background and just take its photo. Then before you forget, open up a Google or Word doc and write a few words about the book and why you loved it. That photo and your written memories can be added to your Family Story Collection. 

To learn more about this process, test out using this flow chart app. Fill out this form to get FREE access.

And, now let’s look at the books you don’t want to keep or add to your family memories.

CATEGORY TWO – BOOKS TO GIVE AWAY OR SELL

This category should only include books that you believe will bring value to someone else. Without elaborating, I’m pretty sure you can make this decision about your give way/sell category books. For example, I bought a few books written by a popular blogger about 10 years ago who is, well, not very well respected any longer. I no longer support what she says and wouldn’t feel good about making her books available to anyone else.

Give to a Friend – If you have family, friends or co-workers that love to read, I do hope that you’ll give them an opportunity first to add some of your books to their own personal library. 

Selling – Selling used books can be a little tricky in today’s economy. Many bookstores are not able to either pay very much or buy books that aren’t in demand by their regular customers due to limited inventory space.

But when you can find a store that will buy your books, it can be magic. Years ago when I was struggling for every penny after a divorce, I discovered the amazing McKay’s Books in Knoxville, TN. I can’t tell you how many times I drove from my home in west Knoxville to McKay’s with a stack of books to sell so that I could have some gas money for the week.

NOTE for Tennessee folks: I’ve read that the Knoxville location of McKay’s will be closing in the near future, but at the link above you can find their other locations. 

Despite the low pay rate and inventory restrictions, it would still be worth your time to check out your local used bookstores to see if they are interested in your books – no matter what they pay. These stores are where readers are going to find books, so this will be the best place for yours.

You can also sell (and donate) books through Facebook marketplace. If your books are college textbooks, reference books or generally more valuable, Ebay is a good bet for selling those.

I did a quick investigation of the benefits of using Amazon’s Seller App to sell used books (OK, I admit it. Claude did the work for me). To sum up, Claude said that when you add up the time it takes to create the listing, package and ship the book if you make a sale, and other admin tasks the profit margin is really not worth it.

Here’s the exception, though. What actually sells reasonably well for the casual home cleaner-outer tends to be niche non-fiction, older textbooks, out-of-print titles, or specialty books that aren’t widely available elsewhere.

Donating to Thrift Stores – If you want to donate your books to a thrift store, be sure and check out their list of accepted donations before you load up your car and make the trip to the donation center. Here’s a link to Goodwill,  but of course there are so many more thrift stores that you could check out.

Donating to Other Places – There may be other places that would welcome a good stack of books that you may not have thought of. 

How about a nursing home or assisted living facility? These often have game rooms with puzzles, etc. and might welcome a donation of Mary Higgins Clark mysteries, Nora Roberts romances or Larry McMurtry and Louis L’Amou western novels.

Another suggestion would be a women’s shelter if you have books geared toward women and children. A good stack of children’s picture books would be lovely to donate there.

Some schools will welcome the classics as well as books for young readers.

And finally, if the books you want to donate are in really good condition, check with your local library. 

One tip. It would be a good idea to take some time to make a spreadsheet with the titles of the books you want to donate to make it easier for those who might want to add your books to their facility. 

CATEGORY THREE – THROW AWAY or RECYCLE

Even with your best efforts to give away and donate books you don’t want any longer, you’re still going to need to put some in the trash. 

And then there’s the option to recycle, but there are some rules around that. 

First, check with your local waste management department to see what is allowed when it comes to books. Here are some common rules to give you an idea.

• Hardovers need to be removed. That includes the cover and binding so that only the paper pages go into your recycling bin.
• Most paper recyclers won’t recycle moldy pages, so if your book has been in a damp basement for a while, rip those moldy pages out first.
• Finally, spiral bindings must be removed whether they are plastic or metal. Even if your city’s recycling program allows you to put paper, plastic and metal recycling into the same bin, those elements need to be separated.

Well, now it’s time for the hard stuff. 

Let’s start decluttering our books and home library.

Remember to take your time and make this process joyful if possible.

But look at you! You’ve read and collected so many great books, but now it’s time to downsize a bit and be more intentional about what you are keeping in your home.

Cheers to a productive few days of decluttering your books and bookshelves!