I recently discovered Bookwyrm and am really liking it. It's not quite as full-featured as The Storygraph or Goodreads but it covers all of the most important functionalities and it's federated which I appreciate. Something that it is missing Vs either The Storygraph or Goodreads at the moment is volume of reviews (ie. Volume of users.) However, your review won't get lost in the sea so much and I've found that it's been quite easy to find readers with similar interests.
Anyway, who here is using Bookwyrm? What's your account so we can all follow each other?
(Mine is [email protected])
Been on it for almost 2 years for now and I really enjoy it :) I mostly just use it to remember what I read and how I like books for myself, and to share which books I'm reading with friends.
I've been using it mainly as a way of keeping track of what I read. I guess I could use a text file, but it's nice to be able to see it from my phone or share it.
Yeah I have in the past used a bunch of different on/offline methods but have always ended up most consistently at Goodreads, so online is definitely the go for me (I can't lose it that way lol.)
Just followed you with mine. Bookwyrm suits my needs at the moment, which are primarily as an adjunct to my aging memory. My main reading interest at the moment is the novels and short stories which inspired well known operas (many thanks to Project Gutenberg). Knowing the plot ahead of time is a useful accommodation for said dodgy memory. :)
One limit at Bookwyrm which I do find frustrating is that we can't make a post which isn't linked to a book. So for short stories and other things I follow my fedi account on another platform, write the post there and then boost it to get it into my Bookwyrm feed so I at least have a record of it.
Sometimes, rarely, you can find an independent listing for a short story if you search for it, but it is definitely a limitation of the platform in general.
Individual short stories can be added as if they were books but that does skew the books read tally, so I use my work around to get the mention in there.
Ooh, I'll have to check it out -- if there's anything approaching decent API support. I'm a coding geek that reads a silly amount and blogs all my reviews. I'd love to share them on other communities, but it's a bit annoying to do it on Goodreads anymore--and I've not found any of the others particularly better.
I really like it, although I keep it to people I know IRL. I'm considering making a TTRPG-specific public one though, does anyone know if books absolutely need to have an ISBN to work with that system?
One thing that I really like about it, vs say Goodreads or any site that is tied to a corporate bookselling system, is that you can use a rating system that works for you, using the full 1 to 5 stars, without worrying that you are causing financial harm to any authors, especially if you keep everything followers-only
Really good point about not needing to worry as much about author harm. I don't think it needs an IBSN as I've added a book with just an ASIN and have seen books that have nothing. Should therefore be able to add some fanfics or self-pubs that don't have an ID.
I agree that would be a great feature. Dunno if it's exclusive to my instance but Discovery also doesn't have an option for global notifications (it's just the local one) which is a bit limiting since my instance isn't that big.
FYI, if you currently use GoodReads, you can export your user data from there, and import it into your Bookwyrm account. It isn't perfect, but it got the majority of my books properly. I think out of hundreds of books, there were something like 30 that it couldn't auto find and import for me.
Just started using it. I'll import my goodreads data once they give it to me, but GR has been feeling really lackluster for a while. Looking forward to trying it out!
i am on a niche server (as i am on most fedi platforms) because it was the sheer volume of review-dunking that chased me off goodreads, long before bozo bought it. so when i went back to book social, i started out hiding in a corner and never left.
federation on bookwyrm seems more hit-and-miss than on other platforms, so the instance you're on makes a difference. most people i know are on books.theunseencity and bookrastinating; i keep a secondary on the latter to see some updates that don't flow well to dansmonorage
Just discovered it a few hours ago (thanks guys) and find it promising... What I would miss from Goodreads/StoryGraph are the following I think:
Reading stats (but there are some issues / pull request on bookwyrm GitHub so we may expect something sooner or later)
Recommendations / discovery of books - author I didn't knew about but we can see with this community or so
Reviews (Of course it's a feature existing in bookwyrm but since the user base is much fewer than closed source alternatives, there are fewer reviews too)
Now I always been more or less implied and interested in FOSS and even if I'm a late adopter of fediverse world that seems very promising to me and I think I'll prefer something free despite the few limitations I oversee.
I agree I would love more stats (something The Storygraph does really well.) Recommendations aren't too important to me since I seem to always have a ridiculous TBR regardless. I don't see myself deleting Goodreads at this point but I will keep posting on Bookwyrm for the FOSS vibes.