There is still the need for a better Goodreads alternative

Tracking your reading can be motivating and fulfilling. When you get the chance to visualize your reading progress, it helps you fostering a sense of accountability, and encourages you to build a consistent reading habit. Once you start organizing your reading habits, keeping track of the books you have read, and analyze your reading trends, you can identify patterns and preferences, which could make your reading experience more enjoyable and efficient. Tracking my reading progress and habits, means that I have a personalized digital library. So I know what kind of books I own, which I have not read so far, and the ones I have on my reading list up next. I do not care about the social aspect of book and reading tracking services that much. Also, since those kind of platforms always focus on reading goals and reading challenges, I feel pressured by that.

I am reading because I enjoy it, not because I want to win a challenge, or read a specific number of books every single year. Because then, chances are high I need to force myself to read, so I can reach those reading goals. I read for the pure enjoyment, and I use reading and book tracking apps simply to know which books I own, which I would like to buy, and which I am going to read next. Having an overview of my reading progress, the highlights I captured from books, and the books I have read so far, also gives me the chance to reflect on my reading habits, and identify what I enjoy reading. Since I am reading for the enjoyment (and to learn and grow) that kind of self-reflection does indeed help me to create a more fulfilling reading experience.

Nevertheless, I do get the point of the social aspect of book tracking apps. There are people who might want to challenge themselves and others when it comes to reading goals. Additionally, a dedicated platform to track your reading progress, create book wishlists, and engage with fellow readers to discuss those books sounds like a nice social network experience. Connecting with people over books is probably one of the nicest ways to get to know each other.

For multiple years, Goodreads has been that platform. If you wanted to track your reading progress, book wishlists, and connect with fellow readers to discover new books, Goodreads was the way to go. But then, Amazon bought it, and things went downhill fast. Since the platform kept growing and millions of users joined it, you were able to quickly experience the lack of effective moderation. Goodreads got swamped with negative and biased reviews, it got plagued by trolls who even left malicious and unhelpful reviews to directly target specific authors, and overall the experience became really worse.

While Goodreads once was not only a great platform to connect with readers and discover new books, it also helped indie authors to reach new readers, and market their books. However, now Goodreads charges exorbitant fees, which makes it hard to leverage the platform as an indie author.

Amazon owning Goodreads is already reasoning enough to not use that platform at all. What made it completely unusable for me is its outdated design, bugs, and limited features. It is clear that there were no intentions to keep up with modern trends, design, and innovations to make the whole platform more usable and appealing. Beyond that, there were no actions at all over the course of the last couple of years that would introduce some changes and improvements. It seems like Amazon has no intention to further develop the site, and the users and authors who are still using it seemed to fine with all negative vibes that are going on there.

I still feel like that there is the need for a better Goodreads alternative. There is room for a platform that not only allows people to track their reading progress and books, but also connect with fellow readers. At the same time, I would like to take one step further and state that the very same platform could allow readers to connect with authors, and allow authors through unique social features to interact with their readers. And to go another step further, why not use the same platform to highlight independent book stores in the regions of the users whenever they discover a new book, and therefore encourage users to shop new books locally rather than supporting Amazon, which clearly does not care about those independent book shops and indie authors at all.

Around 2020/21 there was hope as suddenly two apps appeared that strived for the same goal: building what Goodreads should always have been, a lovely and beautifully designed place to track your reading progress, discover new books, and connect with fellow readers to discuss those books. The apps are called Oku and Literal. Both apps give you the possibility to track your reading and build up a digital library. The social aspect of following people, discuss books, write reviews, create clubs, and more is a core focus of those two platforms. Oku and Literal delivered the fresh Goodreads experience so many users were looking for.

I signed up for Literal since I enjoyed organizing my library in shelves, quickly scanning in book barcodes to add books I discovered in a store to my wishlist, and getting recommendations based on the books I have read and put on my reading list. Since Oku and Literal launched at pretty much the same time, I created an Oku account too, which gave me the possibility to compare both platforms with each other.

What immediately stood out to me was the lovely design of both platforms. The lack of modern and innovative design and experiences that made Goodreads unusable, got replaced by pure love for detail by Oku and Literal. After a couple weeks of usage, Literal seemed like a more vibrant place, so I decided to stick with it. While I wanted to use Literal for personal rather than social purposes in the first place, I started following other users, since I also received some follows. Suddenly, I had a timeline with loads of new book recommendations that actually led to the discovery of loads of new books.

However, at the same time I got faced with loads of people setting and sharing their reading goals and updates, which was exactly what I tried to prevent. Anyway, I simply did not scroll through the timeline that much, and focused on building and maintaining my digital library.

The apps of Literal kept improving nicely. The team shipped improvements to the Goodreads import, which made it easy for people to switch over, introduced dark mode, shipped the ability to share snapshots of books, highlights, and clubs, launched in-app chat messaging, and improved the offline state. But then, things went silent really fast. In 2022, suddenly Literal did not share any new updates or information about the app. Their social timelines got quiet. The iOS app became really slow and it was no longer that joyful to use. On the other hand, my timeline in Literal did indeed kept being a vibrant place. Nevertheless, I was not the only one realizing that. Suddenly, more and more people mentioned that it seems liek Literal got abandoned. What was interesting: not only Literal did not receive any updates anymore. Things around Oku also got a bit quiet.

In 2023, Literal started shipping again. One of the updates introduced the possibility to become a Patron of Literal, which was a subscription that gained the user a couple of benefits and supported the development of the app too. I truly wanted to believe that Literal was still actively maintained, but from 2023 to 2024 not a single update got shipped. No updates were shared on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. I dug a bit deeper and found out that Mihai Nueleanu, CTO, and Sven Schmidt, Lead Engineer, both left Literal in 2023 and 2024 according to LinkedIn. From the initial founding team, Piet Terheyden, CEO, is the only one who is still actively working on Literal, according to his LinkedIn profile.

As a user, but more importantly as a Patron subscriber, this feels a bit worrying. When most of the team excited the company, it creates the assumption that things are not going that well. As a user, a clear communication is the least thing to expect. However, there was no communication, until today. While Literal keeps retweeting some Tweets from users casually, there has been no official information whether Literal is still actively maintained. The fact that Oku went silent too, feels almost like they agreed upon something.

Nevertheless, what almost seems like the abandonment of Oku and Literal is also a clear indication how hard it is to build a great Goodreads alternative, especially when you have not one of the most valuable companies of the world backing you. Literal is still a vibrant place. There are still users sharing their reading goals and progresses. At the same time, voices are getting louder whether it is still an actively maintained project. Literal's Patron subscription that got introduced in 2023 was probably the first step to monetize the app to keep the lights on. As there has not been any communicaton, we still do not know if that worked out or not. Although most users might feel some sort of subscription fatigue, it seems like the logical step to take.

Another fighter who stepped into the ring to compete agains Goodreads is Hardcover. While I went on the hunt for alternatives for Oku and Literal, as I did not want to spend more time with platforms that might shut down soon, I stumbled across Hardcover. Just like Oku and Literal, Hardcover discovered that there is a need for better Goodreads alternative, powered by better recommendations, better and more stats on users' reading history, less spam, and fewer bugs. Hardcover is the product of that, an app that allows users to search and browse for new books, track every book that you want to read, are currently reading, or did not finish, connect with fellow readers, and use a set of stats and tools, including AI, to discover new horizons in your reading journey.

Although I decided to sign up for a Hardcover account, I did not spend that much time exploring it. I felt a bit of a social reading fatigue from Goodreads, Oku, and Literal, and since Hardcover also has a dedicated focus on connecting with others and explore their bookshelves, it was not the alternative I was looking for. While Hardcover's interface might be more modern compared to Goodreads, it almost feels a bit gimmicky to me. Its iOS app, which probably is just a web app wrapper, was quite buggy when I tried it out. Some interactions did not work as intended and overall, I was not happy with the experience.

Nevertheless, it is great to see that there is another company building a better Goodreads alternative. After spending a serious amount of time researching and reading about all and everything that is wrong and bad about Goodreads, I got the clear image that there is still the need for a better alternative. Tracking what you are reading, the books you would like to buy, getting reading stats, and connecting with fellow readers to discover new books together might sound like a niche in the first place. But Oku and Literal quickly demonstrated that multiple users are seeking for a beautiful designed social book tracking platform. However, the biggest challenge is to turn that into a sustainable business, to keep the lights on. While subscriptions sound logical, people experience subscription fatigue. There is the need to figure out other ways to monetize such a platform. And yeah, that is an incredible hard challenge indeed.

For now, I decided to track my reading and all the books I own and the ones I want to buy and read next for my own. I love personal curation, and therefore I started using Book Tracker, and indie app that allows me to manage my book list, track my reading progress, build up a digital library, and save my favorite quotes. There is no social aspect. Book Tracker works for you only, and to be honest, I love that. It is a beautiful designed, native app, that provides me with everything I was hoping for. Book Tracker is build by Simone Montalto. He shares frequent updates about his apps on Mastodon.

Another indie app I also tried out to personally curate my library is Sequel. While Book Tracker is only focused on tracking books, Sequel is a full-fledged media tracker, as it gives you the possibility to keep track of movies, shows, games, and books. It is beautifully designed, feature-rich, and pure joy to use.

In case you are also looking for apps to curate your personal library, make sure to give Book Tracker and Sequel a try. If you are looking for a better Goodreads alternative, check out Oku, Literal, and Hardcover, although it is unsure if the first two are still actively maintained.

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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