SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I had two problems with import and editions. The first is that Goodreads seems to have defaulted to print editions for additions to my TBR and it looks like I rarely bothered to change that. The second is that TSG has many fewer editions listed for some older books. I did get audio editions where they were available on TSG if I specified that on GR, but that combination left out maybe half of my listening this year. The mismatches were very obvious on my TSG stats page.

I don't think that I'm going try to go back and fix this for earlier years (and maybe not even this one), but I changed the format default for my account and I'm going to make an effort to get this right going forward. Probably.

For librarian status find the Contact button or email them saying you’d like to be a librarian. They’ll send you instructions 🙂

Thanks, Anna, will try to do that.

https://twitter.com/thestorygraph/sta...

TSG wants feedback.

"We're looking for three categories of users to help with an upcoming redesign: active and happy users, users who struggle with the app, and users who tried it and gave up with it!"

Anna wrote: "https://twitter.com/thestorygraph/sta...

TSG wants feedback.

"We're looking for three categories of users to help with an upcoming redesign: active and happy users, users who ..."

are you planning to apply?

Me? No, they want you to do a video call.

Anna wrote: "Me? No, they want you to do a video call."

That was my reaction as well. I'd think that requirement would bias the participation and perhaps the results. On the other hand, maybe they'll actually, you know, listen to the feedback that they do get.

Separately I see that TSG is planning a reader preferences survey with items like "Topics, themes, and tropes you don't like." Can't wait to add "Let out a breath they didn't know they were holding," among many others. But I'm also a bit worried that I'll do too much of this that they'll end up telling me that I should "just read the dictionary." 🙄

I often see them replying to tweets about random things people are saying about TSG, good or bad. As in trying to help people if they don't know how to do something, or asking for clarification if there's a bug or a feature request. I love that, they really are listening to the users.

Sorry TSG users, our TSG mod (me) has been on an extended modcation and forgot to update group stuff on TSG! :S Everything should be up to date now! If you notice anything off (now or in the future), post about it here, or DM me or one of the other mods if I'm off gallivanting again.

Hope you had fun gallivanting!

I have a TSG account as well. I tried it because I was told the personalized recommendations were excellent, which I do agree with. But, it seems they don't refresh often. Once I've checked out the recommendations, I'd like to get new ones, but it seems like I can't.
Besides, the navigation is so counter-intuitive. I can't get to the place I want without clicking the wrong buttons at least a few times.😤
I also think it's not as easy to write and find reviews, because they're hidden behind a book's front page and you'd have to know what to click to access them.

I do like the ability to add new books or editions without requiring a librarian. And, indeed, as was already mentioned, the graphs are incredibly fun for stat-nerds like me. 🤣

I think the best way for me to go about it, is to re-import my yearly data late-December every year, check out my yearly stats and graphs, and then not touch it for another year. Seems quicker and less frustrating than having to upkeep both GR and TSG.😬

Nicky, similar to you, I like TSG, but seem to start well each year and then drop off because I can’t maintain updating both GR and TSG. I might do what you are suggesting.

DivaDiane wrote: "Nicky, similar to you, I like TSG, but seem to start well each year and then drop off because I can’t maintain updating both GR and TSG. I might do what you are suggesting."

Would love to hear how it works out for you. 😊

There's a lot that I like about TSG. The recommendations, the review summaries, stats, progress tracking, and the overall look all work for me. Plus it actually loads - unlike GR at times. It's true that the navigation can be mysterious. Challenges are my bane there. And I miss the group discussions.

My approach has been to just stop tracking books or updating any other book information on GR. I only use it for these discussions now. I was prompted by the jarring redesign of the GR book pages but I'd gotten aggravated with other aspects of the creaky GR design/infrastructure even before that. I'm happier having that part of my online life on TSG now.

You make a good case for keeping records on TSG and conversation on GR, Chessie. There is lots I like about TSG.

I'd also like to batch update my TSG books for the past year and a half or so. The first time I just exported all my GR books, imported them to TSG and then spent some (significant) amount of time editing the result. I don't remember the details, but I had to edit tags, I think.

So do I need to do this all over or is there an easy way to just add the books fro the past 18 months? Any tips are highly welcome. Thanks in advance!

It depends entirely on:

- How much you've edited things on TSG since the import
- How much you care about editions/tags/etc. being correct

I used to do a yearly purge of TSG and then do a new import from GR. But now that I'm using TSG more, meaning I've edited entries to correct editions, changed tags, etc. I can no longer do that. What I could do, but have been too lazy to do anything about, is an export from GR, then edit out all things pre-import, and import that to TSG. Essentially this means taking the CSV file you get from a GR export, deleting everything you've already added to TSG (probably by date, so should be very straightforward), and then importing that to TSG.

My best advice is to use one site as your primary, and if you want to keep the other updated, do it in batches and try to care less about it being perfect :)

(I do wonder if someone has made a script that does this tho?)

Thanks, Anna! I thought as much...

Probably will have to purge existing TSG entries and re-import in January. A clean slate so to say... Will see if will need to do any additional editing. If not, will just continue yearly purges-imports. My inner perfectionist will have a fit. Repeatedly :)

Yeah I'm stuck in hell, because I edited my 2022 reads, and have added 2023 manually, so now I "only" have to edit 2021 and older, or live with the fact that they're all wrong :S

I totally understand your hell. Seems like I' going the same way...
Sending you some warm hugs (if it helps in any way).

I'm olga_yo over there, feel free to add me, would love some company in hell :)

Just like on Goodreads, I only have one "friend" on TSG, and that's the SFFBC mod account, so I can check what things look like when I do mod updates :D Even that one feels too many, I don't know what's wrong with me, but I don't want people seeing my book activity, altho I'm happy to chat about things!

(Off topic, but making my account private lessened my anxiety about reading a lot, even though I don't think anyone was looking at my profile anyway :D)

Oh, I didn't realise that, sorry.

Olga wrote: "I totally understand your hell. Seems like I' going the same way...
Sending you some warm hugs (if it helps in any way).

I'm olga_yo over there, feel free to add me, would love some company in h..."

I am mermahoney, I sent you a friend request. :)

I signed up for TSG last year and spent a bunch of time editing when I imported my GR information. Then I was good about getting on there about once a month to add new books and activity to match what I had done on GR. But, then I stopped doing that... uhh...after like 4 months. Hmm.

Olga wrote: "I totally understand your hell. Seems like I' going the same way...
Sending you some warm hugs (if it helps in any way).

I'm olga_yo over there, feel free to add me, would love some company in h..."

I am kbhenrickson and would also love some friends on TSG! Similar to Meredith, I imported my Goodreads data a while back and try (not always very successfully) to update it every month or two. I like some of the features, though - especially the stats.

Yes, the stats are very fun! I was just looking at my year in review for 2022 and seeing that TSG thinks I've only read 1 book this year. I'll have to spend a little time each day getting back up to date over there. I don't want to re-import my GR and do all the editing etc. that I did all over again.

I joined yesterday and imported my books - it got most but not all of my 2023 reads, I think it's missing about 18 books. I mostly joined to track the Read All the Books challenge, because it seems like it might be easier to track there than here? Not sure yet . . .

Anyway, I'm quercus707, in case you received a friend request from me, or want to send me one!

Rose wrote: "I'm quercus707"

I just love that you're a Quercus! 🌳

Just joined this group recently - and accidentally put a post under the "competitor for Amazon" post about GR. One thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread in awhile is that they are adding more "Group-like" features.

I only recently started using GR religiously (beyond adding "Book I read"). I've learned a lot about proper ways to use it.

I'm also planning on getting back into the swing of things over on TSG.

I'm Jen_in_IN over there. Not very creative, I know.

I created a readalong for The Lathe of Haven, our January VBC read, in TSG. Mostly to test the feature. Feel free to join

https://app.thestorygraph.com/readalo...

Glad to see more people are using TSG!

I am mainly on there now, because gr is just too annoying and I refuse to interact with bad usability design in 2024.

I am imaginary_space on there and will check out all of your profiles! Can't wait for them to release their book club feature.

Olga wrote: "I created a readalong for The Lathe of Haven, our January VBC read, in TSG. Mostly to test the feature. Feel free to join

https://app.thestorygraph.com/readalo......"

I've already finished Lathe, but I'll definitely do other read along with you!

Do we want readalongs for the Broken Earth series?
I finished The Fifth Season yesterday, but can create runs for all three. Or just the second and third books if everyone is also done with 5th season.

I love The Story Graph. It has some great features. My user name is: targrhaegar

I find myself utterly confused by different names in GR and TSG, so I created this spreadsheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

anyone who wants to make it easier to connect through both platforms are welcome to add their names and links.

Hope I don't overstep.

That's a good idea, Olga.
I'll probably end up using the same username for both platforms; but before I forget (again), here's my profile:

https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile...

I've done a crude import from Goodreads, but I'm afraid a lot of fine tuning remains to be done in order to bring my StoryGraph profile up to speed. I had a similar experience when I migrated from aNobii, and... let's say it was a very long process.

Did you clean it up before importing? I've been working on cleaning up my Goodreads data for a month now - hoping for a smooth (or smooth "ish" transfer.

Nope! What does that mean?

Besides... A month?! We might as well spend it "cleaning" the result, and becoming familiar with the Storygraph into the bargain.

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "Nope! What does that mean?

Besides... A month?! We might as well spend it "cleaning" the result, and becoming familiar with the Storygraph into the bargain."

Valid point - except it would bother me to have "unclean" data once I know it exists :)

As far as what I mean by cleaning it up - I'm talking about exporting the GR data to a spreadsheet and filtering / sorting it to have all the read books with dates on them & in the categories I want them to have (then updating GR w/ the changes, re-exporting, rinse/repeat). I have a decent size inventory so it takes a bit of work.

Have you seen that TSG has a Book Club feature now? Shall we test it?

Ines is really into TSG and has been beta testing the Book Club feature. She said recently it is not ready for us. She went into more detail on Discord.

Oh, I missed that. Sorry.

No worries! I’ll try to find it and copy and paste it here. It’s worth having here. I wouldn’t mind testing it out with a few of us.

Count me in if you do.
And no need to copy-paste Ines’ post for my sake. Already searched for it in Discord. But maybe someone else who isn’t on Discord would be interested…

I need to get cozy with Discord. And the Storygraph.

The main problem is, it's not ready for large groups yet. But I've talked to Nadia, the dev, on the librarian server and she said large clubs might be a topic sooner than I thought.

I noticed I can only "see" the book club I belong to, which is this one. When I click on community/book clubs, I'm asked to create a book club. No list of existing clubs. Am I missing something?

Just joined The Storygraph. Same user name if anyone wants to friend me.

To stay organized and avoid multiple threads which are actually about the same topic, we're locking this thread.

Please continue discussing TSG here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...