Frequently Asked Questions

Hardcover works a little differently from other platforms in this case. We have a concept of a “book” which has many “editions”. Those editions include other formats (audio, ebook) as well as other language.

You can select which one of these editions you read from the Book Button (the one that says “Want to Read” or “Read”, etc), then selecting “Dates Read” and selecting the edition for each date read. If the edition doesn’t exist in our library, you can still specify the format (Physical, Audiobook or Ebook). If we later add a book with that format we’ll add it for this read through.

It’s not currently possible to change the cover image you see for the book in your library. This is currently the highest requested feature we have and is on our list to implement soon!

You can add new books by going to the new book form, which shows up at the bottom of the search dialog box. If you add a book by ISBN or Goodreads ID, we’ll add that book to our entire library and it’ll show up in search for all readers.

Depending on your user, you’ll be able to add data in different ways.

If you’d like to add a book without an identifier, you can manually add it. Manually added books won’t be listed in search until approved by a librarian, but you’ll be able to add it to your library immediately.

Goal progress is a tricky one. We only track goal progress if you select a Date Finished reading. Otherwise we don’t know when you read it. You can set the Date Finished from the Book Button > Dates Read > then adding a new date.

Progress is updated whenever you change a status of book (“Currently Reading” to “Read” for example) or click “Update Progress” on the goal page.

Eventually, we want to allow a way for authors to “claim” their profile and be able to edit it. Until then, we recommend that authors apply to be Librarians. Librarians can edit data for any books and authors on Hardcover. In your application, just mention you’re an author and we’ll approve you.

After you apply, someone on the Hardcover team will look over your application and approve it.

Head over to the new book page to add a new book. You can also add a new edition to an existing book from the editions page for any book.

Every book you save to your library has it’s own privacy settings of either Public, Followers only or Private. Lists and Goals have these same privacy settings.

Public – Anyone can see this whether they’re signed in or viewing Hardcover anonymously.

Followers – Only people you follow will be able to see this.

Private – Only you will be able to see this.

Due to this permission structure, your stats, activities, list page, and profile will look look different to each person viewing it if you have any non-public books.

Besides blocking someone, not at this time. However, they won’t be able to see any followers only or private data associated with your account. They’ll only be able to see public data unless you follow them.

As a bootstrapped project, we don’t have the revenue to support a bug bounty program. At this time the best we can offer for security and bug bounties is to be upgraded to a Hardcover Supporter for newly identified security risks.

Flairs are badges that appear on your profile. For instance, all readers who subscribed to Hardcover have the Supporter flair, to mark their support for our project. You receive a flair when you are granted a role or perform certain actions.

You can copy your referral link by clicking Copy referral link on Desktop or by tapping the link icon next to your profile picture on mobile.

Any information you keep on Hardcover is secure and there is currently only one person with access to the sensitive data in the database (Adam). We will never sell your information to third parties for any reason, or use it in any way that you haven’t opted in. You can view more details in our privacy policy.

You can become a librarian by applying on:

https://hardcover.app/librarian/apply

Yes, you can find it over here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14pdd-whj9wE70WXDJhy-i1EmlHSr955LGuAFl1-GtYo/edit#heading=h.f37q2h3j8t8r

If your import failed because of a temporary error the system will retry to import your books again. You can view all your imports <a href=’https://hardcover.app/account/import’>here</a>. If the import keeps failing after 24 hours, please contact <a href=’https://hardcover.app/pages/support’>support</a>.

The CSV export from Goodreads only contains the date you most recently finished reading each book. It won’t contain the date you started reading each book, or other dates finished read beyond the first. We’re actively looking for a solution to solve this. You can manually set read dates directly on the Hardcover website, via the book button.

Right now you can only sync your reading manually with your reading device. We have Kindle and Kobo integrations on our Roadmap, which you can vote for or comment on here.

You can head over to the Import Library page and select your Goodreads or StoryGraph CSV file. You’ll need to head over to those sites and download your CSV file. You can download your Goodreads CSV file from here, or your StoryGraph CSV from here.

If you download your CSV on your Android phone, you may need to change from “Recent Files” to “Downloaded Files” in order to see the correct file to upload.

Book data can be edited by librarians. You can apply to become a librarian on https://hardcover.app/librarian/apply.

As a regular Hardcover reader, you can append any data to books that are missing it. You can’t edit any existing book data unless you apply to become a Librarian. You can also get book edit data access by becoming a Hardcover Supporter.

Anyone can add books that are missing by <a href=’https://hardcover.app/books/new’>using our importer</a>. We currently support adding by ISBN-10 ISBN-13 and Goodreads ID. If you want to add custom book to Hardcover, you have to be a Librarian.

Head over to the new book page to add a new book. You can also add a new edition to an existing book from the editions page for any book.

Head over to the editions tab for any book and scroll to the bottom. From there you can add a new edition.

Your stats take a while to update because of caching. They usually show up in a couple of hours. If they don’t, please contact support or flag the issue on Discord.

This feature is coming soon. Hardcover Supporters can add stats to their reading Dashboard. To add a stat click the Add button in the last dashboard widget box and choose the stat you’d like to feature.

Right now we’re working on allowing authors to claim their author pages. If you’d like to be the first one to get notified when it happens join our Discord and message the #authors channel.

You can edit information about an author if you become a Librarian. If you are an author and want to add or edit your profile, becoming a Librarian will let you do that.

The Supporter plan includes extra feature that come in handy especially for power readers. You get Advanced reading stats, Edit access for book data, access to the Librarian and Supporter Discord channel, Supporter flair on your profile. Plus, of course, eternal reader glory for helping us on our mission. We’re always adding new features for Supporters, with a lot of them like Book Moods or Badges coming soon. Find out more over <a href=’https://hardcover.app/pricing’>here.</a>

Earn a free month of hardcover for every 2 readers you refer. The more readers you refer, the more months you will earn with no limit on the number of months you can earn! Once you have an account navigate to the following link to get your referral link.

https://hardcover.app/account/referrals

You can unsubscribe from your plan at any time, no questions asked. If it’s because you’re lacking a feature, let Adam or Ste know and we’ll see what we can do.

We are very happy you’ve shared Hardcover with others. If you still want to support us, let us know at [email protected].

Match Percentage using machine learning to give you a composite score that basically tells you how much we think you’ll love a book. It doesn’t use any Large Language Model, it’s a fancy calculation that we came up with to give you better recommendations.

While we’re not against AI, we firmly believe that nothing can replace genuine interaction between readers. We will never train a model on your data or on the things you share on Hardcover. The only part where you ever interact with AI via Large Language Models is through AskJules, our virtual librarian who helps you find books.
To make the website look livelier, we might use AI-generated art as a placeholder. The artwork is generated via commercially available models that state they weren’t trained on unlicensed data. If you’re an artist and think your artwork would be a better fit, we will gladly consider replacing it with your contribution and offer you a mention as one of our contributors.
If Hardcover ever receives funding or becomes profitable, a creator fund will be introduced, to commission artists we appreciate for custom artwork. Email us at [email protected] for any contributions.

Your data (both personal and your library) is not used to train AI. Your chats with AskJules are private and not used to train LLMs.

No, your data is never seen by third parties. Hardcover is ad-free and isn’t sharing your data with any third party for advertising purposes.

Hardcover is built by a very small team of enthusiasts. It was founded in 2021 by Adam Fortuna. Later on, other members of the team joined, like Ste (Jul.2021), Jeff(Oct.2023) and others you probably interacted with on Hardcover’s Discord. Hardover is also made possible with the help of contributors, like our librarians or developers who have left their mark on its development.

Hardcover is independent and self-funded. We’re not affiliated with any big corp or fund. We believe in building an open, easy to use and fun place where readers discover new stories. We are an open startup and try to share as much of the back-stage process as possible in order to be transparent.”

Hardcover is and will always be free. The Supporter plan is a way for us to make it sustainable and to promote our efforts to make it better.

Ads in the traditional sense (banners) are not part of our business model. Instead, we plan to make Hardcover into a platform where authors can promote their books to readers who are most likely to enjoy reading them. We think that will be a helpful change both for authors and readers. And for the book industry as a whole. As you’ve come to expect from us, the way books are promoted will be well thought out and as subtle and relevant as possible.