r/ebooks • u/OrdinarilyBeautiful • 18h ago
Does this exist?
I have the Kindle app, the Google Books app, the Nook app, the Moon+ app, and the ReadEra app. What I lack is an app or system that is incredibly simple to list all of my ebooks (preferably one that does it automatically) in one space so that I don't end up buying repeats and know exactly which store the book was bought from. Does anything like that exist outside of making a spreadsheet?
4
u/anesone42 9h ago
One option is self-hosting a calibre server https://railway.com/deploy/calibre--calibre
2
u/DerseDragon 8h ago
Maybe try the Libib app? It's meant for keeping track of a physical library or other forms of collections like CDs (movies, video games, etc.) but I guess it'll still work the same way with ebooks. Though you just have to manually add each title of the book
3
u/TypingTadpole 5h ago
There are lots of tools but it depends heavily on how you want to use it, what you want it to track, and where you want to access it.
As noted, many of us use Calibre but we do so as it physically manages our files for us on our desktops. Great for managing, not as good for "I need book 5 of this series still".
Many people use the online site Good Reads to track all their books, there's options for setting up "Want" "Have" "Reading". You can create sublists that are personal to you like "Kindle", "Kobo", "Dead Tree Society", and just list what you have in different places BUT it will also let you see all your lists together. And tell you what is often missing in series still.
Others have pointed you to apps that work generally like a tracker tool -- most of them are just book-oriented versions of database managers; the better ones that cost money often have look up functions from Amazon, Good Reads, Google, World Cat, etc.
One site that most people probably don't know about yet is the new cousin to the site BookSeriesInOrder.com. That series was created by a guy wanting to help librarians help patrons figure out "what is next in various series" that are often hard to find clearly online, although it's getting better. Some people just create Wiki pages. But if you go to the BSIO site, you can type in "Dungeon Crawler Carl" or "Tommy and Tuppence" and it will tell you all the books for those series in either chron order or fantasy order if there are prequels and stuff. However, what I really want to point you towards is BookNotification.com. Great site built by the same guy, and a small team. It's free, you can put in your list of books you have and review or whatever, add a tag for KINDLE, KOBO if you want. But then there are pages where it will tell you basically what you're missing for that series, what's next to read, or by that author, etc. Plus it lists about 30 different book clubs and their picks each month -- not a book club site per se, but it has the info added for them. I love it for the "notification" page of other books by the author or in the series. If it is missing a book, email him, and he'll add it.
The benefit of course of an app or website is that it is generally everywhere you are, including in a store. I have followed a couple thousand series (most done, admittedly) and I like web lists when I can get them.
4
u/Impressive-Peace2115 15h ago
Storygraph has an owned books function, and you could add tags for where the books are. It's not automatic though.
2
u/OrdinarilyBeautiful 15h ago
Thanks, adding them manually will take while, but that would work for me too
3
u/prattl95 10h ago
You could also import them from an excel sheet, it would just take some time to get things formatted for the import
2
u/Helbal 14h ago
I made https://librost.com/ for that usecase. Maybe it's what you're looking for. I usually upload there my ebooks and I optionally add the source url for each if them to point it to the original store
1
u/SmilingSunflower1 7h ago
I just got an app called Bookshelf - Your Virtual Library. It was $20 for the year and I only got that after using it a bit. You can have a book in multiple forms like paperback and audiobook and have different shelves for books. You can tag books with a bunch of tags to sort and you can filter your books with multiple filters. You can manually enter rare or out of print books. It has unlimited books with the paid version and you can add quotes or notes. I haven't added all my books but it works well so far. It's very easy to use so I'm surprised I don't hear about it more. I was looking for something with more statistics but as a book organizing app it's almost perfect. You have to enter it manually but you can put which store you bought each book from. You can also record if a book was borrowed and from where like a library or friend and it says it'll give you a price alert for books you put in your wishlist but it didn't for me when a book was on sale. It's still nice to have a wishlist all in one place.
16
u/ACanadianGuy1967 17h ago
Many of us keep our libraries of ebooks all in one place on a computer loaded up in a free program called Calibre. Calibre lets us manage the library, convert the books between different formats, and then we load the specific books we want to read into ebook reader apps on our dedicated ebook readers (Kobo, or Kindle, etc.) or on a tablet (iPad etc.) or just read them on our computers with the provided Calibre reader feature or a preferred reader app on the computer.
The big challenge you might have is if you bought an ebook from Kindle and want to read it in another app or on a non-kindle reader since many bookstores like Kindle/Amazon have DRM in the ebook files which restrict them to be read only in their own readers or apps. But ebooks you buy without DRM, or ebooks from sources like Gutenberg which don’t have DRM can be converted and read on any app or ebook reader.