Hardcover Report for December 2024

Growing up in Florida, the “winter” season had a much different vibe than I read about in books or saw in movies. Rather than sledding in snow and bundling up with scarves, we’d decorate our house to extremes (inside and out), watch the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT and change from flip-flops to closed-toed shows.

Since moving to Utah 7 years ago, the shift in what winter means has been exciting! Between winter snow sports, Christmas markets and the occasional hot toddy, we’ve enjoyed the holidays in a way much more similar to what I grew up reading about.

This year is a bit of an odd one for my wife and I. We’re in the process of buying a house (🤞), considering adopting a dog (not until we’re settled) and working on a major iteration of Hardcover that’s set for release this month (more on that later!).

Even with all of that happening, we’re taking time to make sure we enjoy our favorite holiday traditions. I love having a real Christmas (next year with our new Midsommar Tree topper 😂). I love making cookies using the same recipes my mom made when I was kid. I love having warm mulled wine outside when it’s snowing. I love watching Christmas movies – including some that aren’t explicitly holiday-themed (LOTR & HP, I’m looking at you).

Holiday traditions vary wildly – even within the United States. Do you have a holiday tradition that you look forward to each year? I’d love to hear about it!

We recently returned from our incredible Spain trip. If you ever have a chance to visit, I’d highly recommend it. The food was amazing, and the architecture of Barcelona had us looking up and digging into the creative history of the area. I’ve been to a bunch of churches around the world, but the Basílica de la Sagrada Família is my favorite. It’s an exploration in color and openness that feels more like being inside a rainbow than a church.

At 16 days, this was the longest trip I’ve ever been on as an adult. It’s always been difficult to schedule time off while working, and we are extremely thankful to have been able to take this time to travel and unwind.

After returning from the trip in early November, I landed with renewed focus and excitement to improve Hardcover. 📚

What’s New On Hardcover?

For November, we attempted something different than usual: by shifting focus to a major update. We fixed a few bugs this month, but most of the work has been towards a major December release.

Hardcover Roadmap

In these monthly reports, I try to limit what we work on to only the past month and the next month. Mostly because I don’t want to get people excited about a feature that might not be released until months from now.

To help with this, we started a new Hardcover Roadmap page, where we share what we’re focused on for the next 6 months. If you’re curious to see where we’re headed, go check it out.

🎙️ Hardcover Live

Earlier this year, we launched the new Hardcover Live, our weekly live show where we build Hardcover in public.

In November, we recorded and released three more episodes, which can be watched on YouTube or downloaded through your podcast player of choice.

Did you know we’re working on stats and the Year in Books? 😂 We aim to update the stats page and create a system that allows those stats to be pinned to your Dashboard (which will come after).

Tune in each Wednesday at noon PST to watch us build Hardcover Live. We don’t yet have any guests scheduled for December. Are you a book influencer interested in being on the show? Let me know!

KOReader + Calibre Hardcover Plugin

If you read using the KOReader app, Hardcover librarian @billiam recently launched an ambitious project to track what you read through the app. You can check out the KOReader Plugin on GitHub for instructions on how to install it and get going.

This follows the recent work by @robbrazier to create a Calibre plugin. I’m so excited to see these projects coming together and supporting different devices and apps than us on the team own. I can’t wait to see what else you’ll build!

If you’re interested in building something on top of Hardcover, check out the #api channel on Discord and the (WIP) API Docs. Some other examples from the community include:

@emma shared her blog post Fun with Hardcover’s Book API: A quick reference, describing how she’s using the API for her Books page.

@bencer is using the API on his site to showcase what he’s currently reading and a few favorites.

Are you using the API in some way? I’d love to hear about it!

The Hardcover 2024 Year in Books

At the end of 2023 we launched the Hardcover 2023 Year in Books, a time capsule of what was popular on here during the year. It’s our answer to an awards show – or GR’s Choice Awards.

We’re preparing for that again this year, but have a few tweaks we’re planning to make.

The biggest change will be in where the artwork comes from. We’re aiming to work with artists to create as many of the images as possible this year and not rely on AI artwork. It’ll mean a lot more work on our end, but we absolutely hear you and agree on the negative impact AI art has on artists and are moving away from that.

Next, we’re working with the community to decide on what “themes” to include this year. In past years we’ve seen the rise of romantasy, the impacts of BookTok on popularity, and other new themes define the book landscape.

That’s where we need your help! What themes have you recognized this past year? If any come to mind for you, we’d love to hear about them! Comment on this doc, or reply to this email with themes (and books from those themes) that stood out in 2024.

If you’re an artist, we’d love to feature your work in the Hardcover Year in Books too! If you’ve created a book-related piece of art this year and you’d be excited to see it in the year of books, please consider letting us showcase your work. (unfortunately we’re not profitable at this time, so we can’t offer commission. But we would love to get your artwork in front of more eyes who might have deeper pockets).

Behind the Scenes at Hardcover

This month, we climbed from 184 to 195 supporters and hit 20k members! 🥳 We’re so close to hitting 200. Maybe December will be the month! 🤞

Hitting 20k members was a huge milestone for us. Each year we’re growing faster and faster. Just look at the numbers as of January 1st of each year:

• 2021: 0 readers (we started in April)
• 2022: 200 readers
• 2023: 1,200 readers (+600%)
• 2024: 5,300 readers (+441%)
• As of December 1, 2024: 20,700 (+390%).

Of those 20k members, 7k were active in some way in November (saved a book, added something to a list, etc). That’s 7k people tracking their reads, and interesting with the community in some way. That’s just amazing. One of my worries is creating something that people try and never use again. 1/3 of people that have ever used Hardcover used it last month. That tells me that people want to stick around. ♥️

At 15,000 new members this year, it’s been such an exciting ride. And yet, every single one of you is still an early adopter. We haven’t blown up social media or in the news. We haven’t pushed out ads to bring people in. It’s all been word of mouth or people stumbling on Hardcover through a friend or a handful of super-kind content creators.

If this trend continues, maybe we’ll grow from 21k to 100k readers next year? 🤔

Featured Prompt for December 2024

With December being a time to stay indoors and keep warm, I decided to pick an indoor-themed prompt by Lee for this month:

What are some books that should be adapted to the screen?

What are your dream books to be turned into movies? Books you read and thought to yourself, “This would make such a good movie”? Add in your favorites, or check out what others think.

Last month’s prompt was What book had you eventually rooting for a character you initially despised? The winning book right now is The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie – which was also recommended by Ross & Laura in Hardcover Live #46.

Most Read Books for November 2024

Here are the most read books on Hardcover for November.

1. Project Hail Mary By Andy Weir
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow By Gabrielle Zevin
3. Words of Radiance By Brandon Sanderson (#2 of 4 in The Stormlight Archive)
4. Exit Strategy By Martha Wells (#4 of 7 in The Murderbot Diaries)
5. Oathbringer By Brandon Sanderson (#3 of 4 in The Stormlight Archive)

What an epic list for this month! Two of these are part of The Stormlight Archive series, Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere epic fantasy. The 5th book in the series, Wind and Truth comes out on December 6th (that’s Friday!). If you’re like me an trying to refresh yourself with what happened in the previous 4,000 pages, here are a few resources to help:

• Interactive Map and Timeline of Roshar – mapped and chronological recap of major events so far
• Daniel Greene’s 2.5 hour Rhythm of War Recap
• Bookborns 90 minute Recap of Books 1-4
• Me, My Skirt, and I’s fun 26 minute recap of the first 4 books (with a lot of music cut in).

If you only have 30 minutes, or if you like musical theater, I’d encourage you to watch the last one. 😂

Side note: In 2025 I’m planning to add another section to this email with “Most Read New Releases”, where we look at only books published in the past 12 months. That’ll allow us to still have an “overall most popular”, but also better highlight new books.

Most Saved Books to be Released in December 2024

I feel like you know what’s coming. 🌬️

1. Wind and Truth By Brandon Sanderson (#5 of 5 in The Stormlight Archive)
2. Heavenly Tyrant By Xiran Jay Zhao (#2 of 2 in Iron Widow)
3. Of Empires and Dust By Ryan Cahill (#4 of 5 in The Bound and the Broken)
4. A Monsoon Rising By Thea Guanzon (#2 of 2 in The Hurricane Wars)
5. Hammajang Luck By Makana Yamamoto

If you’re unfamiliar with The Stormlight Archive series, this is an excellent time to read it. Sanderson has mentioned that this series will be 10 books, but in two different time eras, and this is the last book in the first era. In other words, it’s possible this is the last we’ll ever see of these characters. 😭

I’m equally excited for Heavenly Tyrant. The first book is about a badass heroine controlling giant mechs and overthrowing the patriarchy in an alternative-history variant of China. More of all of that, please.

Side note: if you’re attending Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 in Salt Lake City this week and want to meet up at the Wind and Truth launch party, let me know! If enough people reach out, maybe we’ll try to meetup at the event. If so, we’ll mention it on our social media including our new Bluesky.

Join us on Discord

The Hardcover Community isn’t just on the website – we’re also on Discord! If you’re not an expert in Discord, don’t worry – neither are we.

Join the over 2,000 readers to chat about books, hear about product updates, and be part of the community.

Join the Hardcover Discord

Want to Support Hardcover?

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We appreciate you reading this and hope you have an amazing month. Talk to you soon. ♥️

Adam & the Hardcover Team