💌 hey stranger,

As I'm sure you're well aware, you've entered an app in its alpha/beta phase of testing and development, which means the place is essentially one big construction zone. (You can read the changelog for details.) Watch your head!

There are a few things that are good for you to know about the app, and its current and future state.

getting started

Fill out whatever you want to on your profile, like name/bio, favorite books, and current status.
You can find some people to follow if you want to, by going to the explore page and browsing some of the recent activity in the sections there.
Add a few books to your shelves (e.g. currently reading, up next) by going to the book's page and clicking "shelves".
Create a list or two if you want to. People have been making lists like "favorites of 2023," "to read in 2024," or lists of books around specific topics that they want to share or remember.
Explore other people's stuff, continue to keep track of your books and recs as you read, and try out some of the other features that are there now, and more that will be releasing soon. If you love it and want to get your friends in too, you can invite them by going to "invites" from the user menu.

You can find a bit more context about the app in our blog archive, specifically my post a space for book people.

If you have any questions or run into any issues, let us know. We have a Discord server for feedback, or you can email staff@catalog.fyi or use the "help" link in the user menu (top right).

tips

Shelves vs. lists: You don't need to create lists like "currently reading" or "to read", as you can use shelves for that, which include: to read, up next, currently reading, read, and abandoned. Shelves are a little different from lists in that everyone has the same set of shelves, they show up differently on your profile, and they can have different privacy settings from your lists (for example, if you want to track your reading privately but curate lists of books publicly). You can shelve a book by going to the book's page and clicking "shelves" (the bookmark icon), or click the bookmark icon that appears when you hover over a book cover, or use the "+" button in the nav bar. (You may find you prefer to use lists for everything anyway, which is totally fine!)

Notes vs. posts: What the heck is the difference between a book note, and a (post/thread/conversation)? The best way to think of it is a "personal" vs. "public" distinction. The two look and feel somewhat similar now, but over time they'll grow more into this distinction, where notes are for yourself and/or your friends who want to keep up with what you're reading and thinking (though you can keep them public if you want), and best for capturing quotes or your brief thoughts during/after your reading of the book. Whereas posts will be public and are best for starting discussions (more like a Reddit thread), which is why posts can be much longer in length and support nested comments. If you want to share your review of a book, which should you use? If you're comfortable with (or prefer) the idea of strangers upvoting and responding to your review, use a post (click "create a thread" from the book's page, or click the "+" button in the nav bar). If you'd rather keep it close to home, use a note (click "add note or log" from the book's page, or click the "+" button in the nav bar).

Read dates and reading history: If you add read dates to a book at any point (go to the book's page, click "add note or log"), they won't show up anywhere right now, but they'll be recorded and eventually we will be able to show them in a timeline of your reading history. So in the meantime, you can certainly create lists like "read in 2024" as many people have been doing, but just know that you can also use read dates instead of or in addition to lists, when it comes to tracking when you read a book. To log a reread for a book that already has a finished date or that has been marked read, just add a new log with a new set of dates.

book search and book details

For our book search, and for all the book details you see, including titles, author names, descriptions, and covers, we use OpenLibrary as our data source. We choose to work with them because of a deep alignment of values, because we believe that book metadata (the aforementioned details) should be free and open. That means we forgo paying for the kind of proprietary book data that powers some other book apps. That data is often supplied by huge companies who employ lots of people whose job it is to clean and fix book data; meanwhile, OpenLibrary relies on a small fleet of volunteer librarians who are just passionate about books.

As such, you can expect to see lots of imperfections and weird things in the search results and book details: wonky capitalization, missing descriptions or covers, descriptions that are randomly in another language, cover images that are just a photo of an actual book, and more! Oh, and everything is a little wonkier for books whose original language is not English.

But! You can edit book details, and add/change cover images, so that you can fix whatever bothers you. (Click "edit this book" from a book's page.) And we hope that there will be books for which you find it worthwhile to do so. (See the note about OpenLibrary near the bottom of this page, for more on why you might do so.)

Another tangible thing you can do to help: when you search for a book and get duplicate results (multiple results that all seem more or less correct), try to choose the "best" record (often the one with the most editions, or that has a cover image or the most filled-out details) as the one you interact with. Sometimes it's really not clear which one is the "best" record, and that's okay! But our system is set up to "learn" which book results are the best based on which ones you interact with (i.e., add to your lists/shelves or write notes about, etc), so you can help us filter for the best results just by paying extra attention to this as you use catalog.

bugs and errors

There will be bugs and errors. So don't be alarmed if you run into one! Just screenshot it and send it to us, via Discord, email, text message, or any way that you normally talk to us. In fact, you should be proud to discover a new bug, and we will certainly appreciate it.

privacy

Most of your activity on catalog defaults to being public and visible to the wider internet, but some things can be made more private, where they are visible only to signed-in users, only to friends (users you follow), or only to yourself.

You can review and update your privacy settings by clicking on your username at the top right -> "settings" -> "privacy".

other features

Most of the features you see in the app now are a mere barest-bones shadow of what they will eventually be. If some features seem oddly or illogically incomplete, that's usually the reason why: it's on our to-do list, but we haven't gotten to it yet. We will be shipping new features and improvements all the time. Still, if there's a feature you'd like to see, do speak up! There's a lot we haven't thought of, and we're always looking for more ideas.

how to be a 🌟 beta tester

Mostly we just want you to have fun with catalog and tell us what you think. But if you want to go the extra mile, here are a few ways to be a superstar tester:

Report any bugs, issues you run into, and general weird or unexpected things. You can reach us via Discord, email (staff@catalog.fyi), or any other way that you normally talk to us. There is also a "help" link (from the user menu, top right) where you can submit your feedback.

Make suggestions for things you'd like to see in catalog, or for how you'd want things to work differently. Your involvement at this early stage will have an outsize influence on how catalog evolves.

Add links to books you're reading or thinking about (via "create a thread" on the book's page), as you run into them in your day-to-day, whether they're reviews, interviews, podcasts, TikToks, events, or something else. This will help build a rich context around each book of related media and conversation to explore.

Whenever you're mentioning a book in a digital conversation, consider sharing the catalog.fyi book link instead of the Amazon link! For more of our thoughts on the topic of book links and their implications, you can read our newsletter post on it here.

Help us improve our books by adding and fixing book details and covers on books you care about. Particularly once we've worked out a way to sync our book data and edits back to OpenLibrary (not implemented yet), your contributions here could affect millions of people around the world.

love, rory & glenn

appendix: troubleshooting

I'm getting an error when visiting any page on catalog, but it works from another device/browser or from an incognito tab. Try clearing your cookies for catalog.fyi specifically (you can look up instructions for how to clear cookies or site data for a single site for your browser; it will also work if you clear ALL of your cookies, but it means you'll get logged out of every site you use!).

I'm having trouble resetting my password. If you're not receiving the password reset email, check your spam folder; it's an automated email that's sent from rory@catalog.fyi. If you are receiving the email but you get an error when you click the link: it's best to try resetting your password from a desktop/laptop rather than a phone or tablet. If you're still having trouble, email rory@catalog.fyi and I'll set a temporary password for you, so that you can sign back in and change your password there.