Well first - you don't have to choose us over other sites. If you use Goodreads, or the Book Collector app, or any other book websites to manage your library then you can continue to do so. There's no pressure to switch to just using Book Notification. Mark your books read on both Goodreads and Book Notification, etc.
Of course, our hope is that one day you will start using us exclusively! Here are a few reasons where I feel we stand out compared to other websites:
Human Audited Clean Lists. For each author we add to the website, we click a magic button that essentially brings in every book and edition that author has ever written. Most other sites do that, then release that information to the public. However that can result in a disorganized mess, with duplicate, missing and incorrect books. Instead, we take the time to audit each author, organize all of their books into each series, look for duplicate books with different titles, take the time to make sure each book actually exists, and check if there is a chronological order. We go the extra mile for each author listing, including contacting the author if we need to check something, calling our friends at libraries to look up an older book we have no access to, or checking the authors website and social media in case they have any exclusive books available outside of retailers.
New Book Notification. It's the core of our site, and we feel we are the best at notifying you of new books by your favourite authors. That's the primary purpose I started this site: because I wasn't happy with the other websites out there. I was missing new books by authors as their lists were incomplete, some sites limit how many authors you can follow, and other sites were notifying me when a new edition of a book was released. It was frustrating, and now thanks to creating this site, I'm no longer missing out on new books by my favourite authors.
Printable and Exportable Lists. Nice and clean printable book lists for all authors. Plus, you can export it into various formats such as CSV and RTF and edit it to your heart's content. We plan on adding many more customization options related to printing in the near future as well.
This Is YOUR Website. My aim is to make this the ultimate site for book lovers. The only way I can do that is if I accomodate every request someone has. I strive to do that. Any e-mail suggestion or feature I receive, I aim to incorporate. As an example - Book Notification uses a 10 star rating system. I explain why we went with that in a below FAQ. As of this writing, 6 months after beta launch, I've received just one e-mail from a user stating that they don't like that, and would prefer a 5 star rating system. On our to do list, is the ability for a user to toggle a button in their settings, and across the site they will only see 5 stars if that is what they want. That's just an example of how I want to make sure every single user of the site is accomodated.
So Many Features!. With so much more planned too! Currently, you can follow authors to get notified of new books. You can print book lists. You can mark books read, and create a TBR list. You can rate books, see average ratings for books, have a personalized book calendar and so much more. And all that is just us getting started. There will be so many more features down the road such as a recommendation engine, a friends system, ability to custom tag books, reading challenges, stats and streaks, and so much more. You can keep track of what we incorporate via our road map.