Hi, wanted to share a site I made and launched last week in literary corners of Reddit. It went semi-viral, and now I just got my 500th user.

It's essentially a letterboxd for literature, with emphasis on community and personalization. You can set your profile picture, banner image, and username which becomes your URL. You can also set a spotify track for your shelf. I took huge UI inspirations from Substack, Arena, and letterboxd. You have a bookshelf, reviews, and lists. You can set descriptions for each of them, e.g. link your are.na, reddit, or more. There's also a salon, where you can ask quick questions and comment on other threads. It's like a mini reddit contained within the site. You also have notifications, where you get alerted if a user likes your review, thread, list, etc. I want the users to interact with each other and engage with each other. The reviews are markdown-supported, and fosters long-formats with a rich text editor (gives writing texture IMO) rather than letterboxd one sentence quips that no one finds funny. The API is OpenLibrary, which I found better than Google books.

For example, here's my bookshelf: https://www.literary.salon/shelf/lowiqmarkfisher. It's pretty sparse because I'm so burnt out, but I hope it gets the gist across.

I tried to model the site off of real bookshelves. If you add a book to your shelf, it indicates that you "Want to Read" it. Then, there are easy toggles to say you "Like" the book or "Read" the book. Rather than maintaining 3 separate sections like GR, I tried to mimic how a IRL shelf works.

IMO Goodreads and even storygraph do not foster any sort of community, and most of all, the site itself lacks perspective and a taste level (not that I have good taste, but you guys do). /r/Truelit, and a few other lit subs that I frequent, should be cherished and fostered. IMO every "goodreads alternative" failed due to the fact that they were never rooted in any real community. No one cares about what actual strangers read or write. You care about what people you think have better taste than you read and write. I am saying this tongue in cheek, but it's true IMO. I really do think we can start something really special in this bleak age of the internet where we can't even set banner images on our intimate online spaces. I also believe the community can set a taste level and a perspective that organically grows from a strong community.

My future ambition is to make this site allow self-publishing and original writing. That would be so fucking awesome. Or perhaps a marketplace for rare first editions etc etc. Also more personalization. We'll figure it out. Also maybe we could "editors" so they could feature some of their favorite reviews and lists? Mods of the sub, if you have any ideas, please let me know. For now, I made my own "Editor's picks": https://www.literary.salon/lists?tab=editorspick

BTW, I made a discord so you can report bugs, or suggest features. Please don't be shy, I stared at this site so long that I've completely lost touch with reality. I trust your feedback more than my intuition. https://discord.gg/VBrsR76FV3. I will consider myself on-call for the foreseeable future. If something breaks, I will wake up at 3 AM to fix it. Please feel free to ping me!