#reading tracking

[marzielovesbooks]

okay i need to see something

what do you use to track your reading

goodreads

fable

storygraph

notion

spreadsheet

journal

nothing

other: answer in the comments please

results

Voting ended onJul 25, 2025

[bibliophilicwitch]

Time for an update on my book-reading-tracking-socializing-app/website project 😊 Here's my original post if you want to take a peek to see what I am referring to.

Not interested in reading though my whole ramble, but interested in what I picked and to possibly join and follow/friend me? Scroll past the body of my "novel" to the bottom to easily find links.

I almost immediately removed LibraryThing and Libib from my list as both have limited functions with no discover or discussion features - which I've noticed is something I want more from what I've been using. After setting everything up and starting to use the options regularly, I also found that I just was not updating the "offline" personal trackers, like Bookly or Bookmory, as frequently as the other options I have been testing. I'm sure this is partially because I had a total of ten apps* that I have been testing and a person just isn't going to want to update THAT MANY apps! 😅 I also believe that I was more engaged with the options offering discover and discussion features, so they were the apps I would update first.

While Bookmori was simply aesthetically appealing to keep me wanting to try keeping up with it, Bookly's stats were its primary draw. But since I have been using Storygraph for a few years and it has some basic but decent social features, I decided to pay for Plus to see if I could organize the stats in a way that would make it worthwhile. (So far, things are promising, but it's been taking me a fair bit of time organizing tags and such.)

This testing allowed me to narrow down what criteria I'd found I was looking for in a bookish app. As mentioned, I already had a Storygraph and I also had Fable but hadn't been keeping up on it so it was easy to focus on utilizing them since they were already familiar. I also added Pagebound, Hardcover, and Bookshelf to my test pool. Let me break down what each had:

Storygraph

Mobile & Website

Organization: Shelves/Tags

Tracking/Progress

Reviews: 1/2 & 1/4 Stars, Moods

Stats (More personalization with +)

Explore/Discover: Basic List with Plenty of Filters

Friends/Social Feed

Challenges

Buddy Reads/Readalongs/Book Clubs

Fable

Mobile Only

Organization: Shelves/Lists

Tracking/Progress

Reviews: 1/2 Stars, TW List, Moods

Stats (Limited to what is built into app, but aesthetic 🔥)

Explore/Discover: Organized by different (often AI) generated options focused on themes pulled from review stats and current trends; Also uses organization Lists as Recommendation Lists?

Friends/Social Feed + "For You" Feed

Clubs: Fable is known for its clubs and a lot of influencers have clubs here so it's active if that is something you're looking for

TV Shows: Track what you are watching, have watched, and want to watch in the same app AND join clubs for those shows as well

Pagebound

Mobile & Website

Organization: Reading Status/Shelves - In addition to the classic TBR, Reading, Finished + DNF, Pagebound also has Interested and Paused which I find Neat. But these are less shelves and more the status of a book while shelves are how you organize your books

Tracking/Progress

Explore/Discover: Organized with lists (but NOT AI as the creators are anti-AI) - Most Discussed Yesterday, Most Finished Yesterday, Most TBR'd Yesterday, and a featured emoji. Also have Lists and Quests which are best described as site-wide reading challenges with badges that can be obtained and shared on users' profiles

Friends/Social Feed (Main & Friends)

Sitewide Seasonal & Special Event Readalongs

Book Forums: Tracking/Progress is directly connected to the Book Forum as when you update your progress and share thoughts this is shared to the book forum where other readers can visit while they are reading and see what other said when they are at the same progress points. Engagement is encouraged with an upvote/downvote and reply system like Reddit

Hardcover

Mobile & Website

Organization: Shelves/Genres, Moods, Tags (Popular and Personalized Options)

Tracking/Progress

Reviews: 1/2 Star, TW List, Genres, Moods, Tags (Popular and Personalized Options), Fields for if copy is an Arc and to link book blogs/channels/etc

Stats: a few unique highlights not featured by other options

Explore/Discover: Search by Feed, Trending & Upcoming Books, Lists, Prompts (which is described as a poll), as well as by Genres, Moods, Tags

Network: Follow/Following & Feed

Unique: Storygraph has its graphs and Fable has its clubs - Hardcover has its unique filters that have me staying on it simply to use the prompt and list filters.

Bookshelf

Mobile Only

Organization: Shelves/Tags - both can be added/edited - and wishlist that can be shared

Tracking/Progress

Reviews: Limited, but has additional fields for book status (Series/Volume, Lent/Borrowed, Sold/Donated, and more)

Stats: behind paywall so I have no comments on this

Explore/Discover: Basic List + some filters

Friends/Social Feed: Basic Following/Community Feeds

I personally did not have any features from this app jump out to me so I ended up not regularly updating/using. There may be something else worth sharing, but I didn't use it enough to have that information

Bookshelf fell by the wayside pretty quickly, but I've kept up fairly consistently with the others. I think part of my experience is genuinely hindered by the lack of website and I just don't think I am going to worry about sticking with it. Storygraph has some basic social feed utility in addition to challenges, buddy reads, readalongs, and book clubs. Storygraph also offers more options for graphs - though not as aesthetically pleasing 😔 - so there is genuinely no reason to hold on to Fable in my eyes.

While I do think that Storygraph's community reading options are varied and excellent, I have found myself obSESSED with Pagebound. I thoroughly enjoy the book forum and how it relies on progress and evergreen thoughts allowing for group discussion even if you read the book three months ago and I am only now picking it up. Pagebound does not have some of the basic features other options do have (my biggest struggle is not having book series linked in anyway and no way to organize/sort an author's page to find titles you are looking for or even filter out other languages), but their team is constantly working on updates. Its a fun platform to jump into, but young enough it may not QUITE be engaging enough for everyone.

I want to love Hardcover because the ability for readers to use genre and moods in addition to their own tags - and the prompt feature - for exploring and discovering titles they may enjoy, are just so unique and have so much potential for discovering other reads. But I have found I do not use it to regularly update and more to use look at what I can discover. Clearly I've settled on Storygraph for my stats and graphs with the intention to use buddy reads (etc) after adding more friends (I have a whopping seven friends, so engagement and community activities are NOT happening over there 😅) and on Pagebound for the easy-engagement forum community function. You do not have to have a large list of friends to engage with conversations on any book. You just jump right in!

Friend / Follow Me! Storygraph & Pagebound & Hardcover

* I have at least 7 more options I downloaded, setup, and attempted to test, so 10 is actually cut back! And there were more that weren't available for android so I couldn't add them to my list.

Post Script

There are a couple of odd bookish apps that may have some tracking features, but seem to have a focus of something much more different that are worth mentioning quickly.

Uncover is organized with lists and tags and takes a fair bit of organizing if you want to include a lot of past data. Its key component is that it generates sharables for your currently reading, monthly & yearly wrap-ups, challenges, and a yearly winter holiday TBR and wrap-up. Similarly, there is also BookSlayer, featuring basic tracking shelves in addition to wrap-up and challenge templates. Uncover does allow you to select not yet filled challenge prompts to see recommendations that would fill it, but I have not been able to figure out if there is a way to switch a title to something else. I'm annoyingly picky about my covers - especially if in a graphic - and Uncover doesn't allow me to switch to different editions/covers while BookSlayer allows me to upload my own books to my personal collection so I can then use it in the challenge template. Uncover DOES have a social aspect and is online - thus the recommendations to fulfill challenge prompts - but BookSlayer isn't so there are no recommendations to be found. Similar functions but depends what, exactly, you want out of them.

I make my own graphics in Canva, so an app with ready-made/generated shareables isn't necessary for me. But it is very cool that there are some apps that do that out there!

Also, I had Beanstack suggested - this is primarily for public library reading challenges. If your library hosts any challenges (and most host at least the summer reading challenge) there is a chance they have a Beanstack that you can add and then participate in their challenges when they are available. (As someone that worked at a public library for almost 15 years, love the person that added this in the comments). There is also Owlcrate's Nest app which is JUST social features that circles around Owlcrate - of course.

And, finally, I stumbled on Booktower, which is a "Readable" tracker. It provides a place to track readables in ADDITION to books such as fanfiction and webcomics/novels. As a fanfic reader, having a place to organize fanfic TBR and track what I've read and note if I DNFed it or what I thought of it (is it worth a reread?) has been very helpful! You can track your regular books as well, but after setting up some readables to get started, I ended up dropping the books to just track fanfic on Booktower and use my actual bookish apps for the books.

Anyways, if you read this whole thing, here's a cookie. 🍪 It took me almost the entire day to write up lol. Feel free to reblog/save or to comment/ask any questions or further information you may wish to add or pass on.

Friend / Follow Me! Storygraph & Pagebound & Hardcover

[chacusha]

Reading progress update

April has not been a very good fic reading month for me, but it has been a very good nonfiction reading month. My reading tallies this year have roughly been:

Jan: 25k (nonfiction), 43k (fiction) = 68k total Feb: 22k (nonfiction), 53k (fiction) = 75k total Mar: 94k (nonfiction), 79k (fiction) = 173k total Apr: 150k (nonfiction), 57k (fiction) = 208k total

Basically, one of my four big reading backlogs consists of various links/articles my partner sends me, which I fell behind on from December to February, and only have been catching up on starting from March. But thanks to the fact that I've been tracking my reading, I've been pretty motivated to slowly cut that backlog down and now I think I'm only about 3 links away from the finish line here.

[psychologyhermione]

✨ how i track my reading ✨

i wanna give full credit to the user litlistening on tiktok. i saw her video on how she tracks her books and i took her system and modified it slightly to meet my own needs

first i start by filling out my google form when i have finished a book. this gathers all the info i like to track and puts it into a google sheet for me

here is the google sheet that the data gets automatically entered into

the data then gets put into my stats sheet where everything is calculated and i can easily see everything i want to track

i also made one to track all the fanfic i read ahah but i kept that separate from my book one. i use the exact same tracking system just with a few alterations

—————————

here is a template you can use for yourself. the only difference is there is no google form and you will have to manually input your data. make sure you make a copy of the sheet so you can edit it :)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZaLJp92tG73qTpFeBf4yCbWi5mmHFqz9WapPmHbzwQQ/edit?usp=sharing

—————————

that is the basic overview of my tracking system for this year. if you have any questions or want me to maybe make you one/a book spreadsheet template send me an ask or a message and i’ll gladly help :))

[rigelmejo]

Reading Log Spreadsheet Template

Dreaming Spanish shared this reading log spreadsheet template, with an initial reading goal of 1 million words, then a final goal of 3 million words read. It could be useful to some of you for tracking reading.

I edited it for Chinese, making the initial reading goal 1,700,000 characters (I looked up what 1 million words would be in chinese and a result was 1.7 million characters so that's what I based this off of), and a final goal of 5,100,000 characters read. The 3 million word goal is from Pablo/Dreaming Spanish, based on a study of Japanese students learning to read English ("SEG English school in Tokyo estimates that we need to read 1 million words to notice a considerable improvement in our reading ability, and around 3 million words to be able to read almost any book").

I might make the final goal 9 million words read, or 15,300,000 characters read... as that is the amount of words Paul Noble suggested reading.

I plugged in the stuff I've read, not counting any manhuas or chinese subtitles, and I'm surprised. I suppose in the past I estimated I'd read 454,000 words, so multiply by 1.7 for characters, and that's 771,800 characters. In actual count, I've read roughly 1,248,207 characters so far. So I'm 73% to the initial goal of 1.7 characters read... dang. I didn't realize I was already so far.

Note, the character counts reflect characters read, I did not finish reading all the novels on this list.

(Also some fun facts, if you pick a danmei to read a LOT are 200,000-500,000 characters, if you pick a series, a LOT are over 1 million characters like King's Avatar, DMBJ)

Screenshot of my reading log:

[rawrsamsadino]

I'm forever late to posting my reading logs. An underwhelming February!

[tempest-in-diy-earrings]

[tempest-in-diy-earrings]