Well, I Didn’t Know That! #9
For today’s Well, I Didn’t Know That! feature, I am taking a look at new-to-me features on StoryGraph. If you’re not familiar with the site, it is an independent alternative to the likes of Goodreads. It allows you to track reading progress, organise the books you want to read, and set reading challenges. All of this kind of functionality is already in Goodreads. However, there are differences between the sites. In this Well, I Didn’t Know That! feature most, I intend to explore some of those.
Before I dive in, here is a link to the introduction post for my Well, I Didn’t Know That! series, in case you want to find out more.
Now, let’s go and check out Storygraph’s amazing features!
Reading Challenge flexibility
Currently, the Goodreads website only allows you to set a reading goal based on the number of books you aim to finish in a year. Storygraph is slightly different and offers more options for setting a yearly reading goal.
If you want to track your reading based on page count, rather than book count, that option is available to you. The best feature though, especially for audiobook listeners, is that the website can track your reading goal based on time listened. All you have to do is make sure the format of the book is set to audio, and that an option in your settings, records audiobook time in minutes rather than pages. The rest is all done for you!
This is functionality not yet available on Goodreads, and great for audiobook listeners.
The Devil’s in the details
Both Goodreads and Storygraph have ways in which to filter down your reading lists. Whether that’s book you’ve read, or books you have on your TBR.
As a veteran Goodreads user, I was surprised to see that Storygraph has a lot more functionality in terms of filtering and sorting books. Each book entry into the site records criteria such as mood, pace, length, format and even content warnings. And even better still, all of these are searchable/usable data points.
If you want to take a look at your bookish stats and see what mood the books you read are, that information is available to you! Here is an example of my stats based on my 2023 reading so far!
These fields are also searchable in your reading list section. For example, if you know you wanted to read a faced-paced, mysterious book between 300 and 499 pages long, the website can bring up listings from your reading list based on that criteria. The site is also flexible in that it can bring up entries matching any or all of those criteria! I’ve given just a basic example here, but there is a lot more detail and flexibility in the way in which information about books can be used.
Buddy Reads
A feature I haven’t used yet, but would like to be able to use in the future, is Buddy Reads!
Having had a look at the details on the website, you can set up a buddy read with multiple friends and share your thoughts on the book between the group as you go. A really great feature is that comments/spoilers will only be unlocked once your fellow reader has reached the same point at which you submit the comment. Not only is that incentive to keep reading, but this way, you’re not spoiling anything either. You can submit comments/discussion points at your convenience, but not in a way that ruins the other person’s experience.
It is also possible to get recommendations on books to buddy read with a certain group, depending on your individual tastes. This is behind a pay wall, I will disclose. Personally, I don’t pay to access all the features on the site as yet. However, if it continues to improve as I think it will, then I might consider it in future.
Upcoming New Feature – Book Club
I also want to make a brief mention of an upcoming feature I discovered when researching for this post. I’m looking forward to trying it for myself. At the bottom of the homepage of StoryGraph, there are details on functionality available on the site. Some of this is much like Goodreads, whereas others are improvements.
The last of these is an upcoming feature – the ability to set up a bookclub, vote on books, and have discussions about them… all on Storygraph.
If this could be done within a site I already use to track my reading, I would consider this a massive improvement to using a separate site such as Fable. It would also be a great way to reach out to like-minded readers, as the size and popularity of the site will make for a greater community to interact with.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s Well, I Didn’t Know That! post.
Do you use Goodreads, Storygraph, or any other means of logging your reading progress? Do you have any preferences on how you manage your reading?
Let me know in the comments!
