Shelves and progress
For readers and authorsUpdated 2 min read
Your Library has five shelves (Want to Read, Reading, Completed, Did Not Finish, ARC Reads); a book lives on one at a time. 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 ARC Reads. A book lives on exactly one shelf at a time. Books that are not published here (from the wider catalogue, 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 ARC is placed on ARC Reads for you when the author approves your request; it moves to Completed when you finish, like any other book.
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 %, or tapping Finished, 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 ARC (ARC reviews and your reliability).
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 catalogue for books not published here, or import a Goodreads or StoryGraph export.
- Writing reviews: A review is a 1 to 5 star rating (whole stars) with an optional title and a body of at least 20 characters, plus a spoiler flag; edit or delete it from the book page. Reviews of ARCs carry the ARC 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 ARCs 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. Author pages are public by nature; what an author keeps private is the library and activity.
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