Monday, February 11, 2013

What the Feck (WTF): Book Tracking Sites



What the Feck?! (WTF?!) 
Is a new feature here at The Book Nympho.
Every Monday we will post a book related topic 
that had us thinking WTF?! while reading a book 
or talking to others in the book community.



Book Tracking Sites
Which ones do you use?
by Jennifer (aka The Book Nympho)





It seems like every week there's a new book tracking site popping up on the net. I'm going to show you a few I've tried.


Tracking your current read(s)

You get more details with Goodreads.
You can see my progress of my current read(s)
Also with Goodreads you can have multi shelves to organize your books. For example I use my shelves to help me with my top picks for the year in each genre so when the end of the year comes I can easily research them for my end of the end list. Also if you join a lot of reading challenges you can use the shelves to keep tracking them.



Another feature I like with Goodreads is seeing my ebook vs paper books I've read in a year.


Shelfari is more of a visual shelf system. 
You can see what I'm reading but no details about my progess.
You can't have multi shelves with Shelfari like you can with Goodreads. You just have a Read, Currently Reading and Plan to Read shelves.


Nothing special about how my current read looks on LibraryThing.
And it took me over 5 minutes to figure out how to add a book to my currently reading section.




FictFact has been around for a while. I joined it after learning about it in one of my Shelfari groups back in 2010. 
It's a good site for the series readers. It keeps up with the next book in a series that you need to read. (If you keep your series up to date by marking a book read) It even sends you emails when a new release in a series is coming up. So if you are a person that needs reminders this might be a good site for you to use.
I've used it off and on since I joined it but I often forget about it til I get a reminder email.



If you don't look closely you could miss what I'm currently listening to.
Next Audiobook gives you pretty covers but there's not really a lot of organization going on.
If you wanted to look at someone's profile that has a lot of audios you would have to do a lot of scrolling. There's no real shelf system.



Riffle is a fairly new site that is linked to Facebook.
Much like Shelfari, it's a quick snap shot of your books. You have three shelves: Recommend Books (your favorites), Read Books and Interested Books (books you plan to read).




BookLikes is the newest site I've joined. (Which made me think of this topic for WTF.)
BookLikes has it all. You get to combine the visual look of Shelfari and and the mutli shelves of Goodreads and plus a place for you to blog. And you get a Timeline feature much like Facebook.



Your Dashboard is setup to where you see the latest blog of the people you are following adding another Facebook like element.



On the Blog tab you can write reviews of you books or any other type of blog post.
This is not how your blog tab looks. You have to scroll down to see your post. I just use an image overlay so you could see it.

BookLikes might be a good site for someone to try out if they are thinking of getting into the blogging world. You can try your hand at maintaining a blog without the pressure to get followers. 



Which book tracking sites do you love and which ones have you tried only to drop them after a few weeks? Having seeing my list which ones would you give a try for yourself?

I mostly used Shelfari and Goodreads. All the other sites I've shown you, I've not played with much but while revisiting them for this post I know I'll be dropping all of them and keeping Shelfari and Goodreads. But I think I'll play with BookLikes a little longer to see if it's something I want to maintain.






WTF has been nominated for Best Feature
 in the #BBTC Awards.
Thanks guys!

   Voting begins in March.

19 comments:

  1. For a long while I was using Shelfari and aNobii, but now I just use GoodReads and Library Thing. All four of these are good sites, but my favorite is GoodReads.

    I like the look of Riffle and NextAudioBook, might have to check them out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Both sites require an invite but you can request one through the sites.

      Delete
    2. How long does it take to get an invite? I requested one a few hours ago and am still waiting (from BookLikes).

      Delete
    3. I received an email a couple of weeks ago and when I replied back that I'd like to try it, I got my invite the next day.

      Delete
  2. I used to use Shelfari but other than the great community, I found it lacked in features.
    I found Goodreads by chance on Twitter. I kept seeing these updates and thought that would be a great way to make friends and track my reading. I love it and rarely use other sites esp as it has a phone app.
    I also love fictfact because I often forget what series I'm reading. I really love the book release calendar. So useful when I'm doing my amazon preorders.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would love to takes parts of Shelfari & Goodreads to make the prefect site.

      Delete
    2. I agree. That would be amazing if someone did make a site like that. I hope one comes along soon.

      Delete
  3. I am a big Goodreads user. It is where I do all my tracking and shelving. I do use Library Thing for their early reviewers giveaway and I put my reviews there. I only use FictFact for the Book Release Calendar :)

    I stopped using Shelfari just because I didn't want to update in the 3 different places.

    Great list!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I use Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari. I keep my Goodreads account more up-to-date than the other two. BookLikes sounds like something I might want to look into though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I'm going to play more with BookLikes to see how I like it. But do I really need another site to update? LOL

      Delete
  5. I only use Goodreads and LibraryThing.

    I use GR religiously. I catalog my books, keep track of the books I own, track my reading, etc. I love using GR for this purpose. I love that I can create my own shelves.

    I use LT because of their Early Reviewers program, therefore I use the site to cross post my reviews. But their site is hard to navigate and isn't user friendly; not like GR is. I don't shelve my books on LT or track my reading progress. Just post my reviews.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I completely agree with you. That's the same way I use goodreads too. I have a shelfari account that I only use for The Book Nympho audiobook group. I also have library Thing account but I've only entered in one of their review/giveaway books program. I never use it.
      I'm going to look into Booklikes though.
      Another amazing post! Just love these!
      DeAnna Schultz

      Delete
  6. I use both Shelfari and Goodreads. I much prefer Shelfari's layout for book discussions. Their use of tiered replies allows multiple discussions within the same thread, keeping it logical and sensical. You receive an email notification for all replies made to a topic or all topics within a group (your preference) and the notification provides the content of the reply. You don't have to come back to the site to read messages.

    I use Goodreads more as a backup but it also provides a running "news feed" for your friends' activities, very similar to Facebook's equivalent. Author participation is much more robust on the site and the giveaways are also a plus. They have integrated their data on this site much more effectively than any of the book sites I've tested. However, I absolutely hate their notification system. Some notifications I get, some I don't, even when I've responded and visited a topic. It's really aggravating.

    All of these sites provide more than adequate support for managing your bookshelves and reading activities. Which one you choose will be decided based on your individual needs. I started with Shelfari and am comfortable in navigating it. The book database is Amazon's catalogue so most books are included on the site. However, I much prefer Goodreads approach to managing the view of friends' activities.

    ReplyDelete
  7. After trying so many of them, I only use Goodreads and Shelfari, but the developer of Nextaudibook is working on making it more organized, so I will be using that for my audiobooks.

    Great post!! Sorry I was MIA yesterday, DH was home all day...LOL

    ReplyDelete
  8. Right now I only use Goodreads. I love the tracking, posting my reading status and all that. I just heard about FictFact last week. I think I'm going to have to try that out. Other than that, I think I will leave the rest alone. It sounds exhausting to keep up with! LOL

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  9. I have tried a few (mainly Goodreads). I really need to get better at keeping them updated, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love and use Shelfari. I found it right when I started to get into reading. I have a Goodreads account but I started it late and haven't caught up. I don't use it much. I also have a Fict Fact account. I've been trying to catch up with Fict Fact. It's easier to add and keep track of my books than Goodreads, IMO. I like getting the emails about up coming books to series I follow. Makes life easier.

    ReplyDelete

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