Reading Trackers – Finding the Diamond in the Rough

Recently, I’ve been wanting to try to move away from things related to big businesses and trying to support more small business/entrepreneur types. I’m also willing to support like-minded businesses and move away from those who’s value don’t align with mine. (Looking at you, Amazon…even as I struggle with a massive Kindle Unlimited addiction. Please send help and recommendations that work with Kindle!)

In line with this, was a desire to move away from GoodReads to a different, better book tracker. Honestly, GoodReads isn’t even that great. The only feature I even slightly miss was the fact that GoodReads automatically updated with how much I read daily and when I started or finished a book because it linked directly into my Kindle. Other than that? I was constantly having to fix little bits and pieces of information. I’d end up with duplicated reads thank to the only feature I liked, making this feature more of a catch-22.

StoryGraph

When I joined BlueSky (follow me here), #BookSky introduced me to StoryGraph. Once signing up, I was able to easily import my information from GoodReads. Suddenly, I was in chart-nerd heaven. There are stat charts for just about anything. Genre, moods, authors, book length, pages read, books read – they have it all.

StoryGraph’s interface is relatively user-friendly. I wish you didn’t have to click into the books to track, but that’s just personal preference. The “track progress” interface is also just…lacking. It’s hard to put a finger on why it feels overly cumbersome, but in talking with some other book friends, the general consensus in the group is that was just don’t like it. If you want to track pages you read daily or even just track days read with non-specific read amounts, it’s just not inherently user-friendly.

Overall, I really like StoryGraph. I have used it for several months now and absolutely do not miss GoodReads.

Ease of Use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stats Tracking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Book Recommendations: Yes
Book Recommendations Quality: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Mobile: Yes
Desktop: Yes
Premium: Yes, but you can be perfectly happy on the free version

Bookmory

Bookmory was recommended to me by a friend when I was asking for reading tracking apps. For the sake of this post, I decided to give a try and play around with it. Importing information was relatively easy. I was able to import directly from my StoryGraph, which at this point was more up to date than the my Good Reads, though GoodReads was also an option. The import process went smoothly; the import itself? Not so much. The import was missing many read dates as well as have missing or completely incorrect book covers.

Additionally, zero stats imported. Even though I have read several books this year, none of it imported into the stats. Part of this may be due to the missing dates on some of the books, but even browsing the stats from previous years where I had seen dates import, there were no stats included. I would have to sit and go through my entire collection of read books to update read dates to try and get any stats.

I added a couple of dates to books to see what the stats would look like. Beyond the number of books read for the year, most of the stats are behind an ad gate or you could pay for their service ($28.99/yr). Now, I’m all for supporting a small business (I actually bought a month of StoryGraph Premium to see the *additional* stats and the supporter for Hardcover to get Librarian status), but I don’t like to be forced into it by either having to pay or watch annoying ads to do anything of value.

Bottomline, Bookmory doesn’t provide enough stats or unique feature to be worth my time or money in unlocking them. This one was deleted almost as quickly as it was installed.

Ease of Use: ⭐⭐
Stats Tracking: ⭐ (because they are pay-walled)
Book Recommendations: No
Book Recommendations Quality: N/A
Mobile: Yes
Desktop: No
Premium: Yes – and it’s necessary to function unless you like watching ads for everything

Fable

Fable was another recommended app by a book-loving friend. It’s not just for books, though, Fable also tracks tv shows. First impression was, “This is a very busy app.” There is a lot going on. The home page does have your current read as well as handy little “I read today” button that leads you to being able to track # of pages or percentage of book read. This is a nice, easy tracking feature missing in many apps.

Fable really seems to be more of a social media platform first, book tracker second. The home page, other than the small tracker at the top, is full of book-oriented social posts. I’m sure this could be more curated once you start to follow people, but my initial page was just Fable mods and people hyping Fourth Wing. You can also join clubs to connect with similar genre loving readers.

The stat tracking is not terrible, but it is rather generic. Most of the stats are simply books read in several formats – bar month by month, calendar by month, and goal for the year tracker. There is a genre stat circle graph, but that’s really the only unique tracker they offer. They have a generated “Reader Summary” which, by the info, is a hand-written description by their editorial team that is tagged to you through the use of an algorithm based on your reads. Mine is:

Heroic Reader: Like the best characters in your books, you’ve embarked on a journey through epic fantasy and romance books. The literary treasure chests you find along the way hold the gift of empathy.

Honestly, it’s pretty spot on. Fable would be a great app for someone looking for more connections in their reading app. Personally, it’s too busy and distracting for my ADHD brain.

Ease of Use: ⭐⭐⭐
Stats Tracking: ⭐⭐⭐
Book Recommendations: Yes
Book Recommendations Quality: ⭐⭐⭐ – It would be 4⭐, but the only curated recommendation feature is an AI bot. Given the Meta controversy of stealing from authors for their AI, I am hesitant to like this feature.
Mobile: Yes
Desktop: No – There is a website for signing up and information, but it has no other functionality.
Premium: No, but you can buy books directly through their app.

Hardcover

Hardcover was recommended to me when I was looking for an app to be able to incorporate information into the side bar of this blog. One thing to keep in mind when exploring Hardcover is that they are very much in Beta mode. Functionality is not always consistent, the library is not very complete (many missing book covers), and some features just simply aren’t even there yet. They are upfront about this, however, so expectations were set early there may be some issues.

That said, I like the bones of Hardcover and what their future looks like. Tracking the books is a little easier than StoryGraph. You do have to click into the book from your “Currently Reading” list to access the initial “Update Progress” option in the drop down, but from then on it is in the main drop down menu. The tracker is also a slide bar, which makes updating your read quick and easy once you start the tracking.

Recommendations leave a little to be desired right now, so I am hoping for some improvement here. For some reason, my entire recommendation list is Calvin and Hobbes and various anime. I have none of that in my read list. However, my kids use my Kindle Unlimited and have downloaded these types of books to their personal devices. I still am not sure how it ended up in my feed given that none of these books are attached to the StoryGraph import I used. So, that was a little confusing.

As for stats, Hardcover is a stats nerd dream. You can look at stats ranging month, year, and life. Hardcover imported stats data all the way back to 2020 for me using my StoryGraph import. Some of the imported books are missing stats, but it didn’t take away from the information presented. Hardcover has all the stats StoryGraph has and then some. Want to see how you rated all the books by your most read authors? There’s a graph for that. How many books did you read vs add to your TBR? There’s a stat for that. Pages, ratings, emotion, genre, pace – all of it has a stat graph. It’s not perfect right now, there’s a notice at the top of the stats page that they expect a full roll out in early April, so some things are a little weird, but there is so much promise here.

Last note on Hardcover, they are pretty new. Their library of book information – covers, summaries, etc – is not great. They have a unique way to fix this. You can apply to be a Librarian for them. Filling out the form and taking some steps through their Discord channel unlocks the ability to edit books and update their library database. You can also become a supporter for $4.99/mo to unlock Librarian status and other unlocks, but the app is completely functional and robust without it. That said, if you like it, supporting them is a huge way to help them keep going.

I’m going to stick around with Hardcover. I’m excited to see what they can do as they grow and improve.

Ease of Use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stats Tracking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Book Recommendations: Yes
Book Recommendations Quality: ⭐⭐ – but it’s beta
Mobile: Yes
Desktop: Yes
Premium: Yes, but it’s not necessary to enjoy the app and access functionality.

What am I going to use?

I think I’m going to keep using StoryGraph and Hardcover. I’m not sure which one I like more at the moment. Storygraph has way better book recommendations and runs smoothly. Hardcover has better tracking functionality, and, while it’s a bit buggy at the moment, has a lot of potential. One can’t have too many tracking apps, right?