Hi everyone. Welcome to the April 2026 Recap.[Read Online]
We received some great feedback last month regarding the mobile version of the site, as we prepare to launch a mobile app later this year. We have already implemented some of the suggestions.
My personal favourite was replacing all of the homepage introduction text for members with a small dashboard instead. This now appears on the homepage instead of the “Why Choose Us” text:
We plan to convert the homepage into a full user dashboard, complete with widgets such as currently reading, etc. That will likely be later this year, however, this was a temporary change that made sense. You’ve already chosen us; no need to see that text every time you visit.
We also updated how wider data was displayed on mobile inside tables and lists. Previously, you would have to click a small arrow to expand each entry, such as your Followed Authors or My Books.
This process could be cumbersome and was also causing issues for users who rely on screen readers who use Book Notification. Accessibility is something we care deeply about, and we have now updated listings so that they use horizontal scrolling instead.
Members of the
Page Turners Club now get to help decide The Next Chapter of Book Notification. We have launched the
Page Turners Panel, where our supporters get to vote on and provide their input on which feature we should work on next.
Bringing these new features to life and keeping a database of this size running smoothly is a massive undertaking. Between our staff, servers, and data access, our operating costs are actually just shy of $60,000 a month. It’s a big number, which is why we are so incredibly thankful to everyone who supports us via the Page Turners Club.
If you’d like to help us keep the lights on and get a say in our next updates, it’s just $4.99 USD per month, or $49.99 for the year. It truly is a huge help.
As a thank you for being a member of the
Page Turners Club, we have now launched the
Page Turners Panel. We truly appreciate your support and feel that you should help shape the future of Book Notification. You can now vote on which feature you would like to see launched next.
Cast Your Vote Here.
Behind the scenes, we have been working on a comprehensive ticket system to help manage the e-mails we receive. If you e-mail us regularly and start to notice slight differences in our replies beginning in May, that is why. We have been testing this system for over six months, and we expect it to be rolled out within the next two weeks. If you notice anything odd or out of the ordinary compared to our usual customer service e-mails, be sure to let us know.
We’ve also been having a little bit of fun by sneaking some Easter eggs on certain authors’ pages. We received a lot of positive feedback from people who visited Stan and Jan Berenstain’s page over the past couple of weeks!
If you run a website, social media channel or work in a library, we’d absolutely love it if you could take a minute to add a link to Book Notification. Being linked by other websites helps us so much. We’ve even made it easy for you: link to us.
Until the next chapter,
Graeme
Book Notification Founder
Follow Us: 
If you appreciate the work we do, please consider supporting us by signing up for the Page Turners Club.
Running Book Notification isn’t free. We have a dedicated team who are keeping authors updated daily with the latest books, auditing and adding authors, building new features to better your experience, and much more.
Unlike other sites, we don’t rely on unpaid volunteers to do 90% of the work. Everyone who works for Book Notification is paid for their time, because we believe in fair work.
If you value what Book Notification brings to your reading life, please consider signing up for the Page Turners Club. It’s $4.99 USD per month or $49.99 for the year, and you get an ad-free experience while supporting the hard work our team does on a daily basis.
Site Improvements & Updates
Missing Data Our newest addition to My Library is the Missing Data section. By default, it will display any books that you have marked as ‘read’, but are missing either a rating or read date. This way you can quickly go through and rate all of the books that you haven’t rated yet, which will be especially useful when we launch personalized recommendations down the road.
You can expand this section to include books missing a start date, a page count, or the audiobook length.
Staff Pages: As we roll out our new ticketing system over the next few weeks, you might notice replies coming from different members of our team. We know it helps to put a face to a name, so we’ve put together a brand new staff page so you can meet the folks behind Book Notification!
My Stats: By user request, if you track audiobook hours listened to, or book page counts, yearly and overall statistics for those metrics are now displayed in the My Stats area of your library. You can also set reading challenges based on pages read or hours listened to.
Series Descriptions: We provide one-sentence descriptions of each book series, to let the reader know what the series is about. However we wanted to expand that to cover authors who write primarily standalone novels, non-fiction, or any other books outside of a series.
Now, each of those categories has a description that lets readers know the most popular books in that category. For example, if you are looking to read a Freida McFadden book for the first time but aren’t sure where to start, we now list her most popular books in the standalone novel category:
That data also shows up as a placeholder on any actual series which don’t have a custom description written by us yet.
Quotes: This month, we added Lipstick (On a Mirror) Quotes and Grief Quotes.
Recent Noteworthy Book News
Latest Blogs & Podcasts
Monthly Contest
Each month, we hold a contest giving away ten $25 USD gift cards.
Last month, we held a contest for everyone who commented on the site. Thank you to everyone who commented. Here are the winners – check your inbox for an e-mail from us:
- @lindaluvsbooks (x2)
- Apriljoy611
- Carol K. I.
- Denis M.
- Donna (elstd)
- PamB
- stalsma
- Susan M. (bubbe)
- waterburg72
Quality content and discussion are always beneficial for our website. This month, we are running the comments contest again – asking you to write a comment on an author’s page. It can be whatever you want. You can write about how they are your favourite author, what their best book or series is, or about an adaptation of their book. Any and all comments are welcome.
We will give away ten $25 USD gift cards to random people who have submitted a comment from the day this newsletter was published, up until the beginning of the next newsletter. Each comment earns you an entry (or ‘ticket’) into the draw, and you can enter and win multiple times so comment as often as you’d like!
We will randomly select ten winners to receive a $25 USD gift card. Entries are open from now until the publication of the next newsletter.
Members of the Page Turners Club will get an additional entry into the contest.
The comment form is at the bottom of every author’s page, under the title “Author Discussion”.
Thanks to everyone for your support. It’s genuinely appreciated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Graeme is the founder of Book Notification. Born in Scotland and now living in Canada, his lifelong love of reading began with Enid Blyton. He enjoys spy thrillers, psychological thrillers, light sci-fi, and anything to do with time travel. His favorite book is Replay by Ken Grimwood.