Every day, I'd do that, and also do my SRS reviews. Every week or so, I'd reread the whole week's text. If it was a particularly difficult book, then I might do the same thing after a month (ie. read the whole month's work).
Almost always, by the time I got to half way through the book, I didn't need the SRS software anymore. Authors tend to use the same vocab and grammar over and over again. So I could read several books written by that author with almost no difficulty (although it depends on the level).
Anyway, what I found was that this was the fastest way to bootstrap me to free reading. If I didn't memorise vocab as I went, then I'd need to look up stuff for the entire book (and beyond). But if I did memorise vocab, then I could easily get to a point where I'm just reading casually without any desire to look stuff up. Studies (which I don't have pointers to at the moment, unfortunately) have shown that you need 95% comprehension (on average) to learn new vocabulary and grammar from context. So the key is to get yourself there (in the context of what you are reading) as quickly as possible. It makes a big difference.