Help Center

Click "Sign Up Free" on the homepage or navigate to /sign-up. You can register with your email address or use a social login provider (Google, Apple, etc.). After creating your account you'll be taken through a quick onboarding wizard to personalize your experience. Every new account includes a 14-day free trial of Bookwise Plus — no credit card required.

When you first sign in, a multi-step welcome wizard guides you through setup. You'll choose a username (required for your public profile URL), pick your favorite genres, and optionally set a reading goal for the year. You can update all of these later in Settings.

On desktop, the sidebar on the left gives you access to all sections: Library (Dashboard, Find Books, Shelves, Wishlist), My Reading (Reviews, Notes, Stats, Goals, Badges), Social (Readers, Book Clubs), and AI (AI Companion). On mobile, use the bottom navigation bar or tap the hamburger menu at the top. Settings and your profile are accessible from the bottom of the sidebar.

Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows/Linux) anywhere in the app to open the command palette. It lets you quickly search for books, navigate to any page, or access recent pages. Start typing to filter results instantly. This is the fastest way to get around Bookwise.

Bookwise supports both light and dark themes. Click the theme toggle (sun/moon icon) in the sidebar or settings to switch. Bookwise also respects your system preference by default, so if your OS is in dark mode, Bookwise will match automatically.

Navigate to "Find Books" in the sidebar or use the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K). Type a title, author, or ISBN into the search bar. Bookwise searches the Open Library database with millions of titles. Results show the book cover, title, author, and publish year. Click any result to view the full book page.

The /explore page lets anyone browse books without signing in. Public book pages at /book/[id] show book details, AI-generated summaries, and community ratings — all without an account. This is a great way to share books with friends who haven't signed up yet.

Each book page shows the cover, title, author, description, page count, publish year, and subjects/genres. You'll also see the community average rating and total ratings, an AI-generated summary, and personalized AI insights (match score, verdict, and reasons based on your reading history). From the book page you can add the book to a shelf, start reading, write a review, add to your wishlist, or open the AI companion to discuss it.

From any book page or search result, click the shelf button to add it to one of your shelves (Want to Read, Currently Reading, Read, or any custom shelf). You can also add books directly from the command palette search results. Books are automatically cached in your library after you interact with them.

If a book isn't showing up in search results, you can request it be added to the Bookwise catalog. Go to the Support page from the sidebar and create a support ticket with the book's title, author, and any other details you have (ISBN, publisher, etc.). Our team will review your request and add the book as soon as possible.

Bookwise creates three default shelves for every account: "Want to Read", "Currently Reading", and "Read". These cannot be deleted or renamed. A fourth built-in shelf, "Did Not Finish" (DNF), is available for books you chose not to complete. Books automatically move between shelves as you track your reading progress.

Go to the Shelves page and click "Create Shelf". Give it a name and optional description. Free users can create up to 3 custom shelves. Bookwise Plus subscribers get unlimited shelves. Custom shelves are great for organizing by genre, mood, year, or any system you prefer.

Each shelf can be set as public or private. Public shelves are visible on your profile and accessible via a shareable link at /u/[username]/shelves/[slug]. Free users can make 1 shelf public; Plus subscribers have no limit. Private shelves are only visible to you.

When you start reading a book, it automatically moves to "Currently Reading" (and is removed from "Want to Read" if it was there). When you finish a book, it moves to "Read". When you mark a book as DNF, it moves to the "Did Not Finish" shelf. You can also manually move books between shelves at any time.

From a book page or your dashboard, click "Start Reading" to begin tracking. The book moves to your Currently Reading shelf. You can have multiple books in progress at the same time. Your currently reading books appear as a widget on your dashboard with progress bars.

Update your progress by entering the page number you've reached or a percentage. Each progress update records your current position and optionally lets you add a journal note. You can also tag the time of day you read (morning, afternoon, evening, night) — this data feeds into your reading analytics.

When logging progress, you can add a note capturing your thoughts at that point in the book. Notes can be flagged as containing spoilers. These journal entries appear in your reading timeline and provide context when you look back at a book. They're also used by the AI Companion to give you spoiler-aware responses.

Click "Finish Reading" on your currently reading book. The book moves to your "Read" shelf. You'll be prompted to rate and review the book. Your completion date is recorded and used in statistics and goal tracking.

If you decide not to finish a book, mark it as DNF (Did Not Finish). You can optionally provide a reason. The book moves to your DNF shelf, and all your reading sessions up to that point are preserved in your analytics. There's no judgment — DNF is a normal part of reading.

You can add books you've already read by using "Mark as Read" on any book page. You can set a custom completion date so your reading history and stats are accurate. This is useful when you first set up Bookwise and want to build out your library. You can add the same book multiple times to record rereads.

After finishing a book, a "Read Again" button appears on the book page. Clicking it starts a new reading session and moves the book back to your Currently Reading shelf. When you finish the reread, all your completed sessions are preserved. A badge shows how many times you've read the book (e.g. "Read 3 times"). You can also log past rereads using the "Previously Read" button.

Bookwise uses a quarter-star rating system with 0.25 increments on a 0-to-5 scale. That gives you 20 levels of precision — so you can finally distinguish between a 3.25 and a 3.75. Ratings are shown as stars throughout the app and aggregated into community averages on book pages.

After finishing a book (or anytime from the book page), click the review button. You can set your quarter-star rating, write a text review, and optionally mark it as containing spoilers. Reviews are visible to other Bookwise users on the book page and on your profile.

When reviewing, you can tag the book with mood descriptors (adventurous, dark, emotional, funny, hopeful, etc.) and indicate its pace (slow, medium, fast). There's also a plot-vs-character slider (0-100) for how plot-driven or character-driven the book is. These tags power discovery features and your personal analytics.

Go to the Goals page from the sidebar. Choose whether you want to track by number of books or pages read for the year. Set your target number and save. You can update your goal at any time during the year. Your goal progress appears on the dashboard.

The Goals page shows your current progress with a visual progress bar, monthly breakdown, and projections for whether you'll hit your target based on your current pace. If you're behind, Bookwise shows how many books (or pages) per month you need to catch up.

Bookwise keeps a record of your past reading goals with completion status. You can look back at previous years to see how your reading habits have evolved over time.

The Stats page opens with overview numbers: total books read, total pages, average rating, completion rate, and your current and longest reading streaks. These update in real time as you log reading activity.

The reading velocity chart shows how many books and pages you've read over time. Toggle between week, month, and year views to see your reading patterns at different scales.

Similar to GitHub's contribution graph, the reading heatmap shows your daily reading activity for the year. Darker squares mean more reading. It's a quick way to spot your most active reading periods and any gaps.

The genre distribution chart breaks down the genres of your completed books as a pie or bar chart. The mood radar chart shows the frequency of mood tags (adventurous, dark, emotional, etc.) across all your reviews — revealing your reading personality.

Additional charts include: pace distribution (slow/medium/fast breakdown), a rating histogram showing how you distribute your star ratings, reading time patterns (when during the day you read most), book length trends, and a completion funnel showing started vs. completed vs. DNF vs. reviewed.

At the end of each year (or anytime), visit your Year in Review for a curated summary of your reading year — similar to Spotify Wrapped. It highlights your top books, total stats, reading streaks, and other personalized insights. Available to Bookwise Plus subscribers.

Reading Skyline generates a city skyline visualization built from your reading data — taller buildings represent longer books or more active reading days. Reading Aura creates a color-based visualization of your overall reading mood based on your mood tags. Both can be shared on social media.

The AI Book Companion lets you have a conversation about any book in your library. Navigate to "AI Companion" in the sidebar. You can start a general conversation (for recommendations based on your reading history) or a book-specific conversation (for discussing themes, characters, and plot). Conversations are saved so you can return to them anytime. The companion can also suggest quick actions during your conversation — interactive buttons that let you take action without leaving the chat. For example, you can add a book to your wishlist, move it to a shelf, start a reading session, update your reading progress, set a reading goal, rate a book, share a book link, or search for books on Bookwise and Amazon. These action buttons appear below the AI's message when relevant to the conversation.

When discussing a specific book, the AI knows exactly how far you've read based on your reading sessions. It will only discuss content up to your current progress and carefully avoids revealing anything that happens later. As you read further and log more progress, the AI adjusts its spoiler boundary accordingly.

Bookwise generates AI-powered summaries for books — spoiler-free, 2-3 paragraph overviews that help you decide whether to read a book. Summaries appear on book detail pages and public book pages. Available on the free plan.

The AI surfaces 5 notable or famous quotes from each book, with brief context for each. These appear on your dashboard as a daily quote widget and on book pages. Available on the free plan.

For each book, the AI analyzes your reading history (completed books, ratings, DNFs, mood/pace preferences) and generates a personalized match score (0-100), verdict, reasons you'd enjoy it, potential concerns, and similar books you've already read. This helps you decide which books to pick up next.

When you mark a book as read, a brief notification appears inviting you to discuss the book with the AI companion. This helps you reflect on what you just finished while it's fresh. The nudge only appears for Plus and trial users since the AI companion is a premium feature. You can dismiss it by tapping 'Dismiss', or tap 'Don't show again' to permanently turn it off. If you change your mind later, clear your browser's local storage to re-enable it.

The AI generates personalized book recommendations based on your reading history, ratings, and preferences. These appear on your dashboard as a recommendations widget. Available to Bookwise Plus subscribers.

Go to "Book Clubs" in the sidebar and click "Create Book Club". Give your club a name and optional description. You become the admin automatically. Book clubs are private and invite-only — members must be invited or join via an invite link. Free users can join 1 club; Plus subscribers can create and join unlimited clubs.

As admin or co-admin, you can invite members in two ways: search for Bookwise users by name/username and send them an invite, or generate a shareable invite link (with optional max uses and expiration). Invited users see pending invitations in their Book Clubs tab.

Clubs have three roles. Admin (the club creator) can manage everything: members, books, roles, invite links, and club deletion. Co-admin can manage members, set books, and manage invite links but cannot delete the club or change admin roles. Members can view the club, post to the activity feed, and suggest upcoming books.

Admins and co-admins can set the club's current book. When set, all members' reading progress on that book is automatically shared in the activity feed. When the club finishes a book, the admin marks it as completed and can set the next one from the upcoming books list.

The activity feed is the heart of each club. It shows: new member joins, current book changes, members' reading progress (auto-synced from reading sessions), manual text posts from members, book completions, and reviews posted. Progress updates are deduplicated within 30 minutes to avoid spam.

Members can nominate books for the club's next read. Each member gets one vote per nomination. The admin can close the voting round and select a winner — the selected book automatically becomes the current book while remaining nominations are cleared. Duplicate nominations are prevented.

Each club has a real-time chat powered by live subscriptions. Members can send messages, reply to previous messages (with inline preview), edit their messages, and delete them. Admins can also delete any member's messages. Chat history loads with pagination for performance.

Admins and co-admins can schedule meetups with a date/time, physical location, and/or virtual meeting link. Members RSVP as going, maybe, or can't go. The attendee list is visible to all club members. Meetup creation is announced in the activity feed.

Admins can request AI-powered book suggestions that analyze the reading profiles and preferences of all club members to find books the whole group would enjoy. These suggestions can be added directly to the nominations list.

Go to "Readers" in the sidebar. Use "Find Readers" to search for other users by display name or username. Send a follow request — once accepted, you can see their reading activity, reviews, and public shelves. You can manage your followers and following lists from the Readers page.

Your public profile is accessible at /u/[username]. It shows your display name, bio, reading stats, earned badges, and any public shelves. You control what's visible through your privacy settings. Share your profile link to let others see your reading life.

Use the share button on book pages, your profile, or stats cards to copy a shareable link. Bookwise generates short links (via bkws.app) for clean sharing on social media. Shared book links include referral tracking — if someone signs up after clicking your link, it's recorded.

Navigate to the Notes page from the sidebar or go to a specific book's page. You can add notes, quotes, and highlights tied to any book in your library. Each note can include the page number or location for reference.

Bookwise provides a one-click Kindle bookmarklet. Go to the Import/Export page and drag the bookmarklet to your browser toolbar. Then visit read.amazon.com/notebook in your browser, and click the bookmarklet — it extracts your highlights, notes, and bookmarks and transfers them to Bookwise. Books are automatically matched to your library.

The Notes page shows all your notes across every book. You can filter by book to see notes for a specific title. Notes imported from Kindle are tagged with their source so you can distinguish them from manual entries.

Go to Import/Export from the sidebar (or Settings). Click "Import from Goodreads" and upload your Goodreads CSV file. (To get the file: go to goodreads.com → My Books → Import/Export → Export Library.) Bookwise automatically matches your books using ISBN lookup, title+author search, and smart title cleanup (it strips series info, subtitles, and summary prefixes to find the real book). Premium subscribers also get AI-powered matching: Bookwise uses web search and AI to automatically find books that aren't in the Open Library database. For any remaining unmatched books, you'll see auto-populated search results and (for premium users) an AI suggestion. When you manually match a book, Bookwise remembers that match for future imports. Your ratings, shelves, and reviews are all imported.

From the Import/Export page, drag the Kindle bookmarklet to your browser's bookmarks bar. Navigate to read.amazon.com/notebook, then click the bookmarklet. It extracts your highlights and notes, sends them to Bookwise, and matches them to your books. It's the easiest way to consolidate your Kindle annotations.

Bookwise Plus subscribers can export their full library as a CSV file, including books, shelves, ratings, reviews, and reading sessions. We believe your data belongs to you — you should never feel locked in. Go to Import/Export and click "Export to CSV".

Badges are achievements you earn automatically by reaching reading milestones. They're tied to activities like finishing your first book, completing a reading goal, logging a certain number of sessions, writing reviews, and more. Badges appear on your public profile and in the Badges page.

Go to "Badges" in the sidebar to see all available badges, which ones you've earned, and your progress toward locked badges. Earned badges show the date you unlocked them. A celebration animation plays when you earn a new badge.

The wishlist is a quick-save feature for books you're interested in but haven't decided to shelve yet. It's separate from your bookshelves and doesn't affect shelf organization. Click the heart/wishlist icon on any book page to toggle it. View all your wishlisted books from the Wishlist page in the sidebar.

Go to Settings from the sidebar. You can update your bio, favorite genres, and reading goal. Your display name and profile picture are managed through your authentication provider (Clerk) — click on your avatar to access those settings.

Go to Settings → Billing to manage your Bookwise Plus subscription. You can upgrade, downgrade, switch between monthly and annual billing, or cancel at any time. If you cancel, you keep Plus features until the end of your current billing period.

Bookwise sends helpful emails at key moments: a welcome series when you sign up, a heads-up 3 days before your free trial ends (including a summary of what you used during your trial and a special first-month discount), and a confirmation when your subscription activates. You can unsubscribe from all emails in Settings → Email Preferences, or via the unsubscribe link in any email.

In Settings, you can toggle certain features on or off based on your preference. This lets you customize which sections appear in your navigation and which features are active for your account.

You can request account deletion from Settings. There's a 30-day grace period during which you can change your mind and restore your account. After 30 days, all your data — books, reviews, sessions, notes, conversations — is permanently and irreversibly deleted.

Bookwise supports keyboard shortcuts for fast navigation: • Cmd/Ctrl + K — Open command palette (search & navigate) • Cmd/Ctrl + B — Go to Find Books • Cmd/Ctrl + D — Go to Dashboard • Cmd/Ctrl + S — Go to Shelves • Cmd/Ctrl + R — Go to Reviews The command palette (Cmd/Ctrl + K) is the most powerful shortcut — it lets you search books, jump to any page, and access recently visited pages, all without touching the mouse.

Book pages display community-submitted content warnings so you can make informed decisions about what you read. Warnings include a category, severity level (mild, moderate, severe), and a description. They're crowdsourced and validated through community voting.

You can add content warnings to any book by visiting its page and submitting a warning with the appropriate category and severity. Other users can upvote or downvote warnings to help surface the most accurate information. Each user gets one vote per warning.

Log progress regularly — even short sessions. The more data you provide, the richer your statistics and analytics become. Add journal notes as you read to capture your in-the-moment thoughts. Tag the time of day for each session to see your reading time patterns in Stats.

When reviewing books, take a moment to add mood tags and pace indicators. Over time, these build up a detailed "reading personality" visible in your mood radar chart and pace distribution. They also help the AI give you better-matched recommendations.

Beyond the default shelves, create custom shelves to organize your library your way. Some ideas: "Favorites", "Book Club Reads", "Comfort Reads", "Classics", or shelves by year. Make your best shelf public to share your recommendations with others.

Use the share buttons on stats cards, Reading Skyline, and Reading Aura to share your reading milestones on social media. Short links (bkws.app) keep your shared URLs clean. Your Year in Review is especially fun to share at the end of the year.

Navigate to the Support page from the sidebar (desktop) or the More menu (mobile). Choose a category — General Question, Support, Bug Report, or Feature Request — describe your issue or idea, and submit. Your name and email are automatically filled from your account. We'll review your request and respond as soon as possible.

On the Support page, switch to the "My Tickets" tab to see all your past submissions. Each ticket shows its current status: Submitted (received), Under Review (being looked at), Replied (a response is available), or Resolved (closed). Tap any ticket to expand it and read the full conversation, including any responses from the Bookwise team.

When reporting a bug, please include as much detail as possible: what you were doing, what you expected to happen, and what actually happened. Screenshots or specific page URLs are very helpful. Choose "Bug Report" as the category so we can prioritize it appropriately.

We love hearing your ideas! Choose "Feature Request" as the category and describe what you'd like to see. Be as specific as you can — the more detail you provide, the better we can evaluate and plan the feature. Popular requests are prioritized in our roadmap.