Oh, hello there my Book Buds! I’m your host of this fine website, and my name is Book Buddy. Welcome to Book Notification, your source for all things books. Book lists, book tracking, book reviews. We’ve got it all. Well – not all. One day we’ll have it all! Right now we’re in beta mode but once we get out of that phase, we’ll have it all!
Book Notification is a website that has been many years in the making. July 2016 was when we slowly started building the website. You may know the awesome websites BookSeriesInOrder.com and OrderOfBooks.com? Well they were both founded by Graeme McGaw.
He wanted to expand the websites to add additional features such as book tracking, notifications on new books – all that cool stuff. the more he thought about it, the more ideas he had, and the more he realized that it was best to start afresh on an all-new website. Don’t worry those websites will still exist and continue to be updated. This is just a whole new website, with a lot more bells and whistles!
Graeme starts all websites based on his own personal interests and issues. In regard to this website, he had never been happy with any book notification services out there. He kept getting notifications about paperback copies or missing new books. Or the websites were just bloated and hard to use. Which is why he decided to create this website.
The initial plan was to integrate it into our existing websites. It was close to fruition when FictFact closed down. This was back in 2019. Fictfact was an excellent service for being able to keep track of books that you had read by an author, along with a personalized book release calendar, and many other great features.
He decided at that point to make Book Notification an entirely separate entity, and incorporate features such as tracking the books you have read, marking “DNF” for do not finish, rating books, and everything else a reader wishes to do.
It’s been a lot of work but we were able to announce the alpha launch of Book Notification on August 1st, 2022. We then started the beta launch phase on January 1st, 2023, promoting the site to the OrderOfBooks.com newsletter.
Please note this is a beta version of the site; by using it, you are essentially helping us beta test. That’s an excellent excuse for us so if anything blows up, we can blame it on being a beta!
We have many, many plans for the site. Here is what the site has launched with:
- Ability to subscribe to an author, and get notified on new books by your favorite authors.
- Ability to mark any books as “read” or “did not finish”.
- Ability to comment on any author page and review the author, write about your favorite book.
- Regular news posts to keep you updated on what is going on in the book world.
- Your own personal book calendar!!!
I’d like to say that now the site has launched, the hard work is over. Instead – the hard work is just beginning! We have so many new features planned. These include:
- CSV/XLS imports from other websites of your book lists.
- Subscribe to just a series, as opposed to author.
- Genre tagging, ability to break authors, series and books down by genre.
- A big recommendations engine based off actual data; not some artificial list.
- A mobile app.
And so much more.
For now we just want to thank you for trying out the site. Like I said above – this is a beta.
Of course, I couldn’t do all this by myself. I am just a graphical mascot after all! The following staff members follow my every command including writing articles on the website:
There are also quite a few behind-the-scenes people who are busy working on the database every day. they are Fank, Deb B., Melissa M. and Mason M. A big thank you as well to Helen D. whose research work was instrumental in the launch of this website. Also a big thank you to Alana M. and Janise M., whose database work in the early days was instrumental in getting this website off the ground.
Please feel free to contact us if:
- There are any issues at all – be it with the site, or a book list
- If you have any suggestions for improving the current user experience
- If there are any future ideas you would like for us to implement
- A friends system where you can share books, wishlists etc with friends
This is your site and we want to make it the best possible site for all readers.
You can reach us at site@booknotification.com or by filling in the contact form on any page. It’s in the sidebar on desktop, or do a lotta scrolling down if you’re on mobile.
Thank you so much for visiting and giving us a chance!
Book Buddy