Tracking Reads 2022 | Goodreads to StoryGraph and Other Things

I’ve been actively tracking my reads over the past couple of years beyond using Goodreads. In 2019, I added a physical reading journal that I was so amped about and was doing a pretty good job keeping up with until the pandemic came about. I completely dropped it and tried again in 2020, it was going somewhat alright and when baby #2 was on it’s way. 2021, a couple of months into the new year, I switched over to journaling digitally. Since we move every few years, it was becoming a bit too much to constantly move all my journaling supplies that I essentially was never using. I purged them all and bought the cheapest iPad and my journey began.

Aside from my journal, I have always used Goodreads and in 2022, I’ve been trying to distance myself from Amazon as much as possible especially when it comes to books. I do get my ebooks and utilize Kindle Unlimited, but everything else, I try to use less of.

And that’s where StoryGraph comes in. It’s an alternative to Goodreads and I’ve been using it since the start of the new year. With SG, you have the option of importing your data from GR, which I chose not to do because I do half and sometimes quarter ratings. Since you can’t do these ratings on GR, I would have to go into every individual review in SG and change all the ratings. Why does that matter? One of my favorite features in SG is the stats. I’m already 20 something books in, so I’ll share some of mine.

Now that I’m 21 days into using SG, it’s pretty routine for me to update on a daily basis with no problem. It took a little time to get used to every. It’s not perfect, but I only see it improving as time goes on and they make changes.

Things I Like About StoryGraph

• Stats! Last year, I started a spreadsheet, which input everything into charts and tables for various things. And SG has a more simple version, which I absolutely love checking out every time I finish a book.
• Not owned by Amazon, that’s it.
• Supports independent bookstores through Bookshop in their “buy” links.
• Half-star ratings! I use half ratings a ton, so I’m all about this.
• Buddy read feature! I can’t comment on it yet since I haven’t used it, but you can create a buddy read, invite your bookish friends, and you can discuss while you read. Plus, you can see eveyone’s rating after they finish.
• Content warnings, there’s a designated area within your review where you can state any content warnings, which I think is great. There are many readers out there that absolutely do not want to read about certain things and the last thing you’d want for them is to go into a read completely blind.
• Reading challenges that go beyond how many books you want to read in the year. You can create your own or participate in the many that have already been created by other SG users.

What I Don’t Like

• Missing info/editions of books. I read more from indie authors and those are the books that I tend to find missing editions of. With just about every book that I’ve read so far this year, I’ve had to manually add the edition or submit some info. I actually applied to be a librarian for this this sole reason, but hopefully next time. I don’t mind adding the info, but I see it getting a bit tiresome if I continue to do it with every book that I read.
• Extensive reviews, HOWEVER, you’re not obligated to fill everything out.
• User-flow, this might be my biggest issue, which I’m sure will improve in time. A lot of clicking around to get to here and there. SG shares upcoming updates in roadmap, so it’s pretty neat to see what’s being worked on. And if there’s something you want to address about the app/site, you can do that in roadmap.

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I really enjoy using StoryGraph and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. It already has quickly become part of the routine when it comes to my reading, so this has been a very happy change.

Have you made the switch or are you thinking about it? If you’re on StoryGraph, feel free to leave your link below and come follow you!

Feel free to follow me on StoryGraph | @romanceschmomance