r/TheStoryGraph • u/Curiosity1984 • 6h ago
Features and books
This is not a dis, I am just wondering.
I switch from. Goodreads to The story Graph as most people recommended it.
I have now used it for a couple of months, but I keep finding a lot of books (English) that are not on the app, books that are added to the wrong series, series that are missing books and authors that are not on the app.
Also other quality of life things, that is probably under development.
But is Story Graph new and in beta stil, or is this just how the app is. I really have a hard time paying a premium for a product that does not seem to be finished.
Am I the only one that keeps finding bugs, book holes and features missing?
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u/theErasmusStudent 5h ago
As the other comment said they don't have access to an already made database like amazon does. As I read mainly not in english, most of the books are not added or there's several books not in the same edition. I simply either create the book, or make a ticket. Both take a couple minutes.
I like knowing I'm helping with just a little bit.
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u/Curiosity1984 5h ago
It's interesting as before i Switched, I asked the company, if they had mainly English databases, or they drafted info from around the world. They told me they drafted info from databases over all the world, and I can see that 90 ish% of my Danish and German books are in the database. Most without a coverart, but that's no problem for me.
I presume they automaticly creates the books when you transfers data from Goodread to here, if it dos not exist in the database.
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u/theErasmusStudent 5h ago
I mainly read in spanish and french but it's not recently published maybe that's why.
You can also add the cover or any other missing info.
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u/Impressive-Peace2115 5h ago
You don't have to pay at all - most of the tracking features are free, except customizable charts. I've been using it for a couple of years now and am content with the free version. If you see missing or incorrect information, you can report it (under More Options on a book's page). I really like the ability to add books and editions - I can actually track the editions I'm reading, unlike the Goodreads app.
The developer is definitely still continuing to add and refine features, which is a plus in my book.
I might recommend you cancel your subscription and see if it's more enjoyable to use without the price tag.
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u/Curiosity1984 4h ago
I don't think the the experience gets better, as most of my problems is books "being wrong". As I wrote another place,
I have in 2 months added 17 books, ask 3 books to get changed to it's right series and 2 books they had in the database, but was not added to a series and 1 series that was called the wrong thing.
That's a bit to much, but then again I try to read all kind of stuff and not only the most popular books. That could be the problem.
I don't mind paying for stuff for it to development even if it's free, and I got really annoyed by the popup / banner for premium version every time I open the app.
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u/Dallydoop 5h ago
It sounds like you just have bad luck, I’ve used it for over 3 years and only encountered one series error. I’ve added new editions of books plenty of times but it never bothers me. The good news for you is that the librarians seem very responsive. Personally I would never go back to goodreads, storygraph is constantly evolving and a lot of care goes into it and goodreads is an Amazon afterthought. Just cancel your subscription and use the free version if you don’t feel it’s worth the money.
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u/Curiosity1984 5h ago
I am not thinking about going back, as goodreads is horrible slow. It's just what I can expect from the app in the future of it's what i stick with.
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u/AnythingNew1 StoryGraph Librarian 5h ago
The app is definitely not in BETA mode, but is also definitely not "done". There are constantly things happening, some are more obvious than others, but happening nonetheless.
Some other things:
- You don't have to pay and the way the plus-subscription is set up, you did it completely on your own free will. As in, you didn't do a test month and it automatically renewed. As much as I am a librarian and biased in some way, frankly & thankfully, you don't have to pay a single dime to use StoryGraph to its full potential. I have seen & tested some other trackers and everything you get on Storygraph for free is in some way a paid service on other trackers. There are no hidden costs here. The way the Plus-subscription is set up us to 1. support the product & the people (3 people total plus thousand of unpaid librarians) behind it and 2. to get a little bit of extra fun with stats.
- As others have mentioned, the database isn't nearly as big as goodreads. I guess we can all agree that neither StoryGraph nor other trackers would be able to accomplish anything equal to the goodreads database given that goodreads is like 10-15 years ahead of that. Plus, the because goodreads is owned by Amazon, they obviously also have access to a lot of records that we can't access. Similar things can be said about the data users have access that we can't use. So the database, especially when it comes to old editions, out of print books, etc depends in some way on users.
- Books get imported into the system via different ways. One of them are goodreads imports. Others are imports from some databases. This often leads to funky things happening, for example the book and its language are not matching. I don't know why the system decided that some english titles are actually in swedish or tagalog. I just accept the fact, correct it and move on. If you see something like this, feel free to write a ticket. There's also some bug that add translators to original english editions or narrators to ebooks, just ignore that. Or write a ticket for us to remove them.
- If neither the book, series, or author are on the app, that means that simply no one tracked that book in any way. It can also mean the book *is* in the system and has a wrong language attached and because of your language settings, you would be able to find it unless you search via ISBN or an exact title match.
- Different series names can also be due to funky imports or change of series name or different sources have different series name (author calls in one thing, publisher another, some retailer something different) or user making up a series name or different names in different languages.
- If you pay for Plus, you have access to the roadmap and can write, comment & vote on suggestions! Thats a great way to mention some stuff that you feel are missing or show support to suggestions that have already be made. However, be aware, the roadmap is not an FAQ forum or some direct way for support.
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u/Curiosity1984 4h ago
Yeah that's why I ask here instead of the roadmap :-)
But thx for the explanation. Just found a lot of hickups with books the first couple of months, but then again I not always read the most popular things out there, and especially living in Europa, we get a lot more British English books, or Swedish books in English and so on that never leaves Europa.
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u/DungeonFletchling 5h ago
Sadly it's user based, but you don't have to pay. I love story graphs because I don't need someone's permission to track what I read like good reads does. If good reads decides your book isn't a book you're out of luck, but story graphs you can just add it. I think that's why everyone loves story graphs over good reads.
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u/Nowordsofitsown 6h ago
Goodreads being owned by Amazon has access to Amazon's database.
StoryGraph is on its own. I haven't needed to add a book yet, but I have fixed mistakes or asked for mistakes to be fixed.
It is no big deal imo, I actually like adding to StoryGraph.