Shelves and progress
For readers and authorsUpdated 2 min read
Your Library has five shelves (Want to Read, Reading, Completed, Did Not Finish, From authors); a book lives on one at a time, and a copy an author handed you keeps its mark wherever you move it. Books you are reading carry a progress percentage; reaching 100 % or tapping Finished moves them to Completed and offers a review.
The short answer
The five shelves
Your Library has five shelves: Want to Read, Reading, Completed, Did Not Finish and From authors. A book lives on exactly one shelf at a time, so the counts across the row add up to All. Books that are not published here (from the wider catalog, or an import) sit on the same shelves as the rest; see Finding books.
Shelving a book
- On the book page, the primary button adds the book to Want to Read in one press; the small arrow beside it (Change shelf for …) opens the other shelves and Remove from library. The same control is on each result in Discover and search, and on the shelf card in your Library.
- An approved early copy is placed on From authors for you when the author approves your request; it moves to Completed when you finish, like any other book. A delivery link and a giveaway win arrive the same way.
- A copy an author handed you carries a mark on its card, From Ana Reyes, with the date a review is owed by when one is. The mark stays with the book wherever you move it, and From an author beside Sort shows every one of them at once. A book you had already shelved before the author sent you a copy keeps the shelf you chose: your own filing is never overruled.
Progress
Books on the Reading shelf carry a progress percentage. Update it from the Library or the book page (Update progress, then Save progress). Reaching 100 % moves the book to Completed and offers, never demands, a review (Writing reviews). A book you stop reading goes to Did Not Finish; nothing about it is judged, and it counts as follow-through for an early copy (Early copy reviews and your follow-through).
In your Library, saving a progress of 100 % also opens a small step headed You finished The Salt Road, with How did it feel?: up to three moods and a pace, both optional. Save keeps them for you, with or without a review, and the review form starts from them; Skip keeps nothing. A book's page shows what readers found once five have said (Writing reviews).
Where it shows
Your shelves and progress are yours to show or keep: under Settings › Privacy, the Library and Reading progress each have their own visibility (public, followers only, private). See Who sees what. What you finish also feeds your Reading insights, your goals and your achievements, and, with the author's other readers, the charts.
Smart shelves
A shelf that fills itself from a rule ("Completed this year") is a smart shelf; every reader account may keep five.
Where this lives
Related
- Finding books: Search from the header, browse Books and Authors with filters, let Discover recommend, reach the wider catalog for books not published here, or import a Goodreads or StoryGraph export.
- Writing reviews: A review is a star rating (press a star for a whole one, or use Exact rating for any quarter step) with an optional title and a body of at least 20 characters, plus a spoiler flag; edit or delete it from the book page. You can also say how the book felt, up to three moods and a pace; the book's page shows what most readers found once five have said. Reviews of early copies carry the early reader badge and one extra rule, honesty.
- Smart shelves and saved searches: A smart shelf fills itself from a rule you choose (unread by authors you follow, hidden gems, open early copies in your genres, series you have not finished, short reads, coming soon), with a length, a lowest rating and an order; a saved search is a Books filter you named. Five shelves and ten saved searches per reader.
- Reading goals: Goals tracks what you read against a target you set (books finished, genres explored, a series, one particular book and more) over a period, with optional reminders, on your profile or private; a goal can rest and resume without losing anything. Five at a time.
- Who sees what: profile visibility: Settings › Privacy sets your whole profile to public, followers only or private, and your library, reading progress, activity and follower list each on their own. Your follow-through is a fifth setting: by default only the authors you request a copy from see it. Author pages are public by nature; what an author keeps private is the library and activity.
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