Hi everyone, I wanted to respond to the big discussion around the new user experience in the forums and forum/list etiquette. First of all, I can speak for everyone in the PB community when I say we’re all so excited to have new readers here; the more lively Pagebound is, the more fun it is to be here. Pagebound is different from most social media sites; we’re focused on discussion and creating meaningful dialogue (leading to meaningful connections) which also means we operate a little differently than what you’re likely used to. Since the app’s launch we’ve had thousands of new users and Lucy and I are quickly realizing we have a lot of work to do to make new users feel welcome and provide the tools they need to interact on the site, while preserving the thoughtful and warm community that’s been fostered here.

Here’s our plan: Our Top Contributors are already working on an “etiquette” guide; Lucy and I will work with them to get this finalized and will pin it to the top of Pagebound Club. Lucy and I will work on the FAQ to make it more detailed and robust; we will also revisit the Posting Guide and see if we need to make tweaks there. We recently launched the “PageboundBot” which is an anonymous moderator account run by humans. PageboundBot may archive and leave a comment on your list or post if it doesn’t follow the guidelines set in the Posting Guide. This is intended to be purely a gentle reminder moment and not a slap on the wrist. Archiving ensures our forums remain high quality and relevant.

For those totally new here, here’s some context that might guide your posting: When you post in a book forum, your post lives there forever for future readers. It is also sent to the feeds of everyone with that book in their library. Our vision for book forums is a place to discuss books as you’re reading them, so you can see what others thought at the same place as you. We value discussion over memes and low effort “throwaway” posts (that does not mean we don’t value humor; I’ve genuinely laughed my ass off at some of your posts and memes, we love our comedians). It’s a tricky balance between fun and substance, but we find most of our users strike it well.

In the meantime while we work on the action items above, here are some quick and dirty guidelines. Historically, we’ve been lax with guidelines since we wanted to simply provide the tools for connection/discussion and see how the community used them. We’ve clearly outgrown that, so apologies if this list is still too vague, but this is truthfully the guidelines we have in place as of right now and we will work on getting them more formalized and less vague.

We are a site to talk about books, so your posts should be book related. Occasionally you will see a non-book related post, but since that doesn’t happen often, we let it slide (if this gets abused, we will be more strict about it). We do not want to become Fable or Tome where you see a mix of Instagram/personal blog type content alongside book content; if that’s what you’re looking for, the other book socials will be a better fit for you.

Forums are for timeless discussion. Good things to think about: Does this post spark discussion? Will someone else stumbling on this who doesn’t know me be interested? Personal updates do not belong in the book forum (posts like: “Read on the train today”, “Listening to the audiobook” etc). You can do this by commenting on your activity update in your feed. A no-context reaction post (like an emoji, or “WOW!“) will get archived; we definitely want you to post reactions, but without context its impossible to know what you’re reacting to (imagine you read a book 3 months ago and you see Thoughts from page 288: “WOW” - you’d have no idea what they’re talking about).

In general it is good practice to check the forums before posting. This applies to both Book forums, Quest forums, and the Pagebound Club. Repetitive posts compromise the quality of the forums and become a moderation headache (both in volume and in the dilemma of not wanting to punish someone for posting, but also wanting to preserve forum quality). In the book forum, you’re welcome to post a “repeat” if you have a different take than an existing post; but you also may want to consider jumping in on existing discussions.

Regarding Pagebound Club: we will revamp the club so its less overwhelming (example: having a separate place for book recommendations and PB-specific product questions) but in general, PB club posts should not be about a specific book or series. Those posts belong in the book forums. It’s worthwhile to scroll a bit or use the searchbar to see if your post is a repeat. Keep in mind: EVERY user on Pagebound will see your post. Ask yourself: is this something I want to blast to tens of thousands of people? Your post might be better in a Quest forum (example: looking for scifi recs - check out a scifi quest forum). PB club ideally is not a customer service platform; if you have a very specific question, see a bug, or need help with your account, submit a form or email Lucy and I directly at team@pagebound.co.

Lists: Lists are intended for the community; they are our way of providing human recommendations and helping you discover new reads that aren’t driven by an algorithm. If a list is mainly for yourself (“My Fall TBR”, “My Favorite books”) it should be a shelf instead. The best lists are specific and unique; “Good Thrillers” vs “Horror featuring Southern Gothic Mansions”. While making lists for series and authors is not explicitly “wrong”, it also doesn’t provide much value (series lists could be useful since we don’t have series data right now, but we often see repeats of these; we don't need 10 zodiac academy lists for example).

FIN

I hope this was more helpful than overwhelming; like I said, we’ll work on distilling this into a digestible and easy to reference format! And final note: many users who have been around for a while may comment on a post (especially in PB club) directing you to an existing post; this is not a slap on the wrist, but rather a part of the culture here as often other posts have more context, or Lucy and I have responded in depth to a platform question somewhere else.

Feel free to leave your thoughts below, and I'm especially curious to hear from new users what sort of guidance would be helpful as you learn your way around!

I have been here since yesterday so I think I should introduce myself, idk if I’m supposed to do that but I’m gonna do it anyway. So hi everyone, I’m very excited to be here and I wish I discovered it earlier. I am a reader through and through, have been reading for as long as I remember. My favorite genre is fantasy but I try to read a bit of everything. It’s complicated to pick my favorite books but I’d say my 5 stars fantasy books are the licanius trilogy and my brother is threatening me to say eragon

This year has been really tough in my personal life (although Pagebound has been a joy amidst the bs) and one of the things I've had to grapple with is my relationship to anger. As women, we're socialized to be understating, empathetic, and forgiving, often to our own detriment. Instead of feeling angry, many of us (myself very much included) tend to feel hurt or sad. I've found so much inspiration from women in literature who embrace their anger and act on it, even if it's in "unhinged" ways.

My therapist asked me to read "The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships" and I HIGHLY recommend to anyone looking to tap into their anger and use it in healthy ways. Anger is such an important emotion to be in tune with; it lets us know when our boundaries have been crossed and when we're being treated unfairly.

This quest means so much to me and really feels like a personal quest as well; I hope others find just as much inspiration from these books as I have.

I am over the moon to share that the app is officially live on both iOS and Android!!

We've quite literally poured our blood, sweat and (lots of) tears into the app development over the past 9 months and we could not be more thrilled for everyone to experience it!

We're still being indexed in app store search so you may have to scroll to find us, or type in Pagebound: Social Book Tracker. Here's links to iOS and Android: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pagebound-social-book-tracker/id6751526412 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.pagebound.app

There are quite a few improvements and new features in the app, including:

• Book Journeys (click the map icon on the book cards in your library and other user's library to see their posts, comments, and updates for a specific book)
• Quick access to "add to plan"
• Filtering your activity on profile
• Save posts
• upgraded Read Dates editing

This is the first release, so there will be many more additions and improvements to come. (PS for Android users: we're aware of two bugs related to library imports from Goodreads/Storygraph, and issues with editing read dates - these have already been resolved and are pending Google approval for release.)

We owe a huge thank you to our beta testers who worked diligently over the last month to report hundreds of bugs and help us get the app prepared for release. A huge round of applause to them.

We hope you love the app as much as we do; it definitely makes engaging on PB so much more convenient and fun. If you have a great experience with the app, we'd love if you'd consider supporting us through Pagebound Royalty; Lucy and I have worked for $0 over the past year to bring the app and website to fruition, and have been covering business costs with our savings accounts. Your contribution means we can continue to work full-time on Pagebound without influence from investors or advertisers, and keep Pagebound 100% for readers by readers. Thank you so much to all the Royalty who have already contributed; it truly means the world to us and keeps Pagebound online!

ok now go download the app and tell us what you think!

Happy Reading, Jennifer & Lucy

PS - leaving us a review in app stores also helps tremendously :)

Does anyone have recommendations on world history books (particularly interested in the 1900s)? Almost like an AP history book where it’s general and in chronological order?

I think I've realized that I have a bias against authors who have written a lot of books. In the title I said 100+, but even at 50+ I start to get a little sideye/skeptical about it, because I feel like how is it possible to write THAT many books and have them all be high quality? I'm specifically talking about authors who write full length novels for adults, because I think with short stories or children's books that's much more reasonable to publish loads.

Anyone else??

I just brought this up to a fellow book reader and she hadn’t thought about it before so I thought I’d make a discussion post about it to get everyone’s thoughts!

I’m reading a book right now that is giving me the vibes that AI was used during the writing process, I could be wrong (I see a lot of AI usage at my job to assist writing so that’s why I tend to notice) and I really struggle with authors using AI.

I feel that this turns their writing into not their own and the way that it makes the writing feel more robotic. Has anyone else noticed this? i’ve seen a lot of talk of authors using AI for their covers, but I haven’t seen a lot of talk about AI assistance with writing.