The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries logo

The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries

Subscribe
Archives
January 1, 2024

#162 - A Good Feeling

Feeling good about what 2024 has in store for StoryGraph, three exciting releases in the last two weeks, and what I'm working on for the next two!

View this email in your browser
#162 | 1 January 2024

A Good Feeling


Happy New Year, y'all! 🎉

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling good, great even, about what 2024 has in store for The StoryGraph.

We've entered the year with a solid cadence of releases — more on that below — and I see it continuing, bringing to the app more maturity, especially in terms of functionality and UI/UX.

Well...let's see!! 💪🏾

(Oh and thank you sooo very much for all of your love and support in 2023. It's invaluable and very much appreciated! 🥰)
 

Since last time...
 

What a WILD two weeks that was!

Here are the top three releases:

First, the overhaul of the recommendations section finally went live!! 🥹
Screenshot of the new "Based on recent reads" recommendations section on StoryGraph. Two book covers are show side-by-side, and there's a "Browse" button top right.
Screenshot of the new "Similar users loved.." recommendations section on StoryGraph. Two book covers are show side-by-side, and there's a "Browse" button top right.
Screenshot of the top of the new "Advanced Recommendations Search"  menu on StoryGraph. The top section reads "What are you in the mood for? Books with a similar theme/feel to... You can select up to 3.' Two books have been selected, and their cover thumbnail shows alongside the title and author, and underneath is a search bar with the placeholder "Search by title and author or ISBN".
Screenshot of the bottom of the new "Advanced Recommendations Search"  menu on StoryGraph. The '500+' pages box has been checked. Then there's a free-text box labelled: "Themes/Topics/Tropes" with the subtitle: "For the best results, keep content in this box to a comma-separated list." Inside the box is the text: "Campus setting, cliques, dark academia". There are two checkboxes underneath labelled "Don't show me books in my To-Read Pile" and "Don't show me books I own". Then there's a green "Search" button.

Second, we launched the barcode scanner! 🥳

Now, post its launch, we had some drama with Android phones that had wide-angle lenses but I managed to eventually resolve it, mainly with massive support from our wonderful volunteer StoryGraph Librarian community, especially Malka who spent over two hours on a voice call with me testing things on her phone while I troubleshooted. 🫶🏾
 
Screenshot of the Owned Books page on StoryGraph. Top right, above the list of books, there's a grey "Add" button with a scan icon in it.
Not only do we have the scanner in the main search bar, we have an Owned Books one, which automatically marks books you scan as owned!

And finally, we launched our 2023 Wrap-Up, complete with some new shareable graphics! 🤩
New Wrap-Up Summary View. The top row features four book covers, each labelled "First", "Last", "Longest", and "Shortest" respectively. The second row features the number of books and pages read, in separate boxes. The third row features a "Top Genres" chart and a "Top Authors" box. The next row features an audiobook cover of my one 5-star read, The Only Plane in the Sky. And the final row features a bottom banner: "The StoryGraph Wrap-Up 2023 @nadia" and an box with my Average Rating: 3.88 stars.
I have to give a huge thank you to bestie (and Rob's wife), Saron, for massively levelling up the first draft of the design I had for this (which was still pretty good, if I do say so myself 😌).
A screenshot of my StoryGraph mood map with the wrap-up bottom banner. There's a red/orange line that spans each month of the year. Text on the chart reads: A reading mood map. Light books push the line up and darker books pull the line down.
A collage of the covers of all the books I read last year.
What percentage of my 2023 reads have you read?
 

Next two weeks


I really want to get the two new styles of reading challenges out today or tomorrow and then it'll be back to book clubs!
 

What I'm reading


Early December, a friend and I went to a bookstore and selected for the other a book we really liked in 2023 that they didn't know much/anything about. I chose Severance by Ling Ma for her and she chose Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus for me. Knew nothing about it going in and loving it so far!

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. :-)
 
Haven't tried The StoryGraph yet? Check it out today!
Love the app? Consider upgrading to our Plus plan!

Want to volunteer? Apply to be a Librarian!
Use Mastodon? Check out our server!
Were you forwarded this email?
If you liked what you read, you can subscribe for future updates and catch up on past ones.
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
Copyright © 2024 The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries, All rights reserved.

Subscribe for a behind-the-scenes look at my StoryGraph founder journey and beyond.



Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries:
Bluesky Threads X Bookshop.org LinkedIn Instagram Personal Website
Powered by Buttondown, the easiest way to start and grow your newsletter.