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December 4, 2023

#160 - Realising the Mission

A review that reminded me of a four-year-old piece of paper, readalongs are finally live, and the three focal points for the next two weeks! 📚 💬

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#160 | 4 December 2023

Realising the Mission


A couple weeks ago, a user submitted this review on the Google Play Store:
 
Five star emojis and then the following text: "As an avid reader, this app has changed my life. StoryGraph is easy to use and bursting with features that far surpass anything Goodreads has attempted. There a millons of ways to filter information and sort your own library and TBR."

It was the first sentence that stuck out to me because it reminded me of our official mission statement, which we don't really publicise.

I dug out the four-year-old piece of paper from when I first wrote it down:
A light yellow/orange piece of paper with handwritten words on it. In the middle is a box with an orange border filled with the words: We exist to enhance the lives of avid readers everywhere and to inspire non-readers to discover the joy of reading.
We exist to enhance the lives of avid readers everywhere and to inspire non-readers to discover the joy of reading.
 
It was a cool moment to reflect on the fact that, at least for some avid readers around the world, we've realised the mission! And, we often hear from people who got back into reading after discovering the app. 🥰

It's hard to read, but the three sections at the bottom, titled "Core Values", say:
  • Mission-driven: Whatever we do should reflect our mission statement. Does it enhance the lives of avid readers? Does it inspire budding readers?
     
  • Customer-first: We focus on listening to our customers and letting them guide the direction of the product.
     
  • Continuous Improvement: We're striving to continuously improve our people, product, and processes. We regularly seek feedback, reflect, and iterate.
And I'm so proud to say that we've stuck to this so far and plan to do so indefinitely! 😃
 

Since last time...
 

Our readalongs feature, where up to 1000 people can read a book together, is finally live! 🥳

Here are some screenshots from The StoryGraph's first official one:
 
Screenshot of the top of the readalongs page. The book cover is on the left and beside it is the book title, "Hosted by thestorygraph", "1 Dec 23 - 31 Dec 23", 1000 participants and a green "Joined" label. Underneath is a section labelled "Participants". There are two stats panes: Book completed: 17%; Average progress through book: 33%. There are then three user progress panes, showing various levels of progress through the book, including one "Book not started". There's a link at the bottom of this section reading "View all..."
Screenshot of the first three forums in the readalong. They are represented by white panes stacked vertically on top of one another. The top one is titled "Introduce yourself" and has 263 comments. The second one is called "Anticipation" and has a subtitle of 'Target: 1 Dec 2023". There's a progress bar labelled 1%, 7 pages. There is some descriptive text reading: "A forum to discuss the prologue of the book!". There are 81 comments. The final forum is titled "Part I - Primordium" and has a lock icon above it. There's a progress bar that extends across the middle of the pane and underneath it reads "Forum unlocked when you reach 23% in the book." There are 21 comments.
Screenshot of my introductory comment in the readalong, with a series of emoji reactions underneath it, including 150  red heart reactions, 58 wave reactions, 17 purple heart reactions, and so on.
Readalong Forum Search. The word "excited" is typed into the search bar at the top of the page, and relevant comments are shown, with the word "excited" highlighted in a light cyan colour. There's a link to "Go to comment" for each comment.

We've also got a live readalongs page where users can look for ones to join:
Screenshot of the Live Readalongs page. At the top reads: Live Readalongs, search, sort, and filter options, and a "For You" section, coming in 2024. Underneath is text reading "428 readalongs" and then six panes arranged in 2 colums. Each pane features a book cover, title, date of teh readalong, number of participants and a link to "view readalong".

To find out more, check out the most recent changelog post on our roadmap!

In other news, as part of the upcoming recommendations overhaul, for the private Admins-only beta, we added the concept of "Reference reads" to the preferences survey:
Screenshot of a part of the upcoming reading preferences survey form. Underneath the "favorite genres" section is a section titled "Reference Reads" with the subtitle: "These are books that you'd like our system to refer to while generating your recommendations. They may be your current favorites or perhaps books that reflect the kind of reading you're in the mood for. You can select up to 5.". Undeneath are four book cover thumbnails, with the book title, author, and a "Remove" link. Then there's a search bar, with "the big short" filled in and there's a results dropdown, with "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis as the first result.
This is so users no longer need to fill out a free-text box listing their favourite themes, topics, and tropes in order to get high-quality recommendations, though this option will still be available as part of a new "Advanced Configuration" section.
 

Next two weeks


Three key things:

1. Book Clubs

2. Barcode Scanner: Main search and Owned Books options

3. Giveaways: In-app digital and audio prize delivery

And then a bunch of other things that need to be out before the end of the year. 😅
 

What I'm reading


I'm reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern for our readalong. I had planned to say "click to join", but we're filled up! Do periodically check the readalongs page though. One or two spots open up now and again. 👀 
Book pane for Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. The book cover is on the left and features black and white imagery of magicians, acrobats, and circus-related images. In the middle is the book information, including title, author, and other metadata and tags: 626 pages, first published 2011, fiction, fantasy, historical, romance, adventurous, mysterious, slow-paced, dec-tbr. To the right is my reading information: a progress bar filled 13% of the way, "Started Dec 3, 2023", marked as "currently reading", and a "view readalong" button.

Have a great week,

Nadia

P.S. Know somebody who's an avid reader or would enjoy following along with this journey? Please do forward this email to them! Thank you. :-)
 
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