The Hardcover Blog

We're building Hardcover in public! You can follow our journey here on the blog, or subscribe to the newsletter to get every update.

Hardcover Live #14 – Testing out Search v2.0 on Staging

Search v2.0! Recorded May 22, 2023

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Adam Fortuna

1 min read
Cover for Hardcover Quarterly Plans for mid-2023

Hardcover Quarterly Plans for mid-2023

Edit books, select editions, site improvements, book page, search improvements and more.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

6 min read

Want to be a Hardcover Librarian?

We’re looking for the first few librarians to join! Are you up for it?

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Adam Fortuna

4 min read

Hardcover Live #13 – OpenGraph Images

Recorded May 8, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #12 – Designing the Search 2.0 Experience

Recorded May 3, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read
Cover for Building Hardcover: on “good enough” qualitative user personas

Building Hardcover: on “good enough” qualitative user personas

Hardcover is self-funded with a small user base, so we don’t have swathes of quantitative data at our disposal. But we still need a shared understanding of the needs, expectations, and behaviors of the readers we’re building for. We still need user personas.

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Lily Bradic

6 min read

Hardcover Live #11 – Designing a Librarian System

Recorded April 24, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #10 – What Does it Mean to be a Book Influencer?

Recorded April 17, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #9 – Designing the Best Book Page On the Web

Recorded April 10, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #8 – Planning the Best Book Page Ever

Recorded March 20, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #7 – The New Book Page

Recorded March 13, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #6 – Ask Jules, Hardcover’s AI Bot

Recorded March 6, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Ask Jules: Your OpenAI Powered Librarian

Jules is here to help you find your next book and answer any book related questions you have.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read

Hardcover Live #5 – Should we create an AI Librarian?

Recorded February 27, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #3 – Discussions? Book Clubs? Comments?

Recorded February 15, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #4 – Updating Partial Progress On a Book

Recorded March 13, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #2 – Mind Mapping the New Book Page

Recorded February 6, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read

Hardcover Live #1 – Designing the Book Button

Recorded January 30, 2023.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

1 min read
Cover for Making the Most of Stats

Making the Most of Stats

How to highlight your book favorites by making the most of your public stats page.

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Adam Fortuna

5 min read

Leaving Twitter?

Thinking about making the move away from Twitter? We’re a much different social network, but here’s what we’re focused on now and into the future.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read
Cover for The Hardcover Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Discovery Flowchart of the 2010s

The Hardcover Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Discovery Flowchart of the 2010s

We lovingly created this infographic to help you find the science fiction or fantasy book from the past decade that’s right for you.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

4 min read

Goodreads vs. Hardcover: Which is Right for You?

A feature by feature comparison of Hardcover and Goodreads with screenshots.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

14 min read

Introducing Airlists: Airtable for Your Books

Airlists are more than just lists: they’re a tool for you to use to find or share that perfect book from.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

5 min read

7 Ways You Can Use Match Percentage To Find Amazing Books Today

Match percentage is a score from 1% to 100% for how much we believe you’ll enjoy a book.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

6 min read

$9,207 Spent, 400 Users: 8 Lessons From Hardcovers First Year

What a year! Here’s a look at everything we learned during the first year building Hardcover.

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Adam Fortuna

24 min read

Books vs Editions: How We’re Organizing Data Around Readers First

A look into how we’re organizing book data at the book and edition level with users first.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

6 min read

Sticker Contest & Beta Release!

Want some nifty stickers? We got you covered.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

Next Stop: Beta Release! 

It’s finally happening – our beta release is just around the corner.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

13 Reasons Why We’re Building a Better Goodreads

Taking on Goodreads and Amazon isn’t something we take lightly. Here are some of the reasons why we believe it’s important.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

14 min read

Introducing Prompts

Prompts are polls. They’re a new way to ask a question where readers can answer to find the best books.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

Is Hardcover a Social Network?

After a bunch of discussions with users we have an idea on what the social side of Hardcover will be. Want a sneak peak?

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

5 Spooky Books to Read This Halloween

Check out 5 Spooky Books to Read This Halloween!

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read

Hardcover Internal MVP Released!

We’re working out the bugs and getting ready for a public release! Join our mailing list to be notified first.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

Finding Good Books Shouldn’t Be a Slog through the Amazon

Our manifesto.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read

What’s in a Reading Goal?

We’re trying something different on Hardcover: allow readers to create multiple goals to spark motivation.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

4 min read

Your Book Stats: What Are They For?

Showing the right information about your reading habits can inspire more reading and help you find books you’ll love even more.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

6 min read

List and Shelves and Organization, Oh My!

Book organization is a core piece of any book tracking application. This enables easily seeing books organized in a bunch of different ways. Here’s a look at some of the ways we’re tackling this at Hardcover.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

6 min read

Hardcover Update #2 – What’s Different About Hardcover?

This is an email that went out to the Hardcover email list on June 20, 2021. Join the list to get these when they’re sent.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

The Perfect Startup Tech Stack?

Every developer has a tech stack they consider to be the best. Mine has changed over time – and is changing again for Hardcover.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

10 min read

The Startup Blog

I’ve always loved reading blogs and other stories that document a companies founding. We’re going to be doing just chat – sharing what we learn and our progress along the way.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

3 min read

We have a name: Hardcover!

Our list of potential names was… interesting.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read

Untitled Book Site Kickoff Meeting

It’s official – we have a group working together on this project! Here’s a look at how we’re kicking things off.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read

I’m Building a Goodreads Competitor out of Spite

It started as a Tweet, moved over to a brainstorm and now it’s actually happening.

Adam FortunaAvatar for Adam Fortuna

Adam Fortuna

2 min read