Add automatic updating of read status on GoodReads

[GarethBlain]

🗣 Context

Add automatic updating of read status on GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/)

💬 Narrative

It would be great to be able to link a book you're listening to to a GoodReads book when it's added to BookPlayer.
That way as you start reading a book it could have the started date automatically marked on GoodReads then as you progress the percent complete could be updated.

I often find that after a few years I can't remember what book in as series I was up to when the author releases multiple new books so Good Reads is a great way to track that but only if you remember to mark them as read! This would hopefully easily allow us to track them. Maybe even allowing future stuff like recommendations from GoodReads. 🤷‍♂️

📝 Notes

I suspect this linking would need to be done manually initially at least as there are often multiple copies of a book on there with similar names. For example I find Audiobooks are often books 1, 2 & 3 of a series and have the same name as the first book. A nice simple search UI or even initially just a way to add a GoodRead Book ID to your Audio Book when you first open it in the app.

[pichfl]

We are planning to revamp how meta data for books is handled in the app which would in theory make it possible to store and edit the necessary link inside an ID3 field.

While I do see the value in this idea, I'm not very keen to support a service owned by Amazon.

[GarethBlain]

I did not know GoodReads had been acquired by Amazon. 😳That's disappointing as Amazon always destroy and never reopen all public APIs. Nest for example! 😢

[pichfl]

😞 sadly so, yes.

[pichfl]

After quick research I found out that GoodReads does no longer provide public access to an API since December 2020 (Source), which makes such an integration very hard to maintain (or would violate the TOS of Goodreads).

[GarethBlain]

Yes agreed this isn't an ideal solution knowing that.
I still like the idea of being able to automatically store a list of books that have been/are being listened too for future reference. Ideally with some kind of ISBN (or Audiobook equivalent?) so it could be used to link back so something like Goodreads but one that hasn't be destroyed.

[pichfl]

I do like the idea as well. ISBNs are issues for all kinds of media, even audiobooks and do indeed make a good unique identifier. We could store them in a custom ID3 field on the actual files.

There is LibraryThing which has APIs but I haven't tried them yet.

[GarethBlain]

I did come across that after the horrific news Amazon has GoodReads. I’ll leave this idea here then. ☺️

[jeremygrenier]

I use Goodreads extensively to track my books and reading status, and I was planning to add the behavior you requested. However, Goodreads deprecated their API a while back, and it's currently quite messy to add books and update reading status through Goodreads.

After some research, I found several alternatives, and the most promising one is https://hardcover.app. I've started working on a Hardcover integration to automatically detect books and track reading progress.

I'm hoping to have something ready soon.

@GianniCarlo FYI.

[GianniCarlo]

sounds good @jeremygrenier , the LibraryService has a progressUpdatePublisher property that you can hook into, not sure how often one can post to their API, but this publisher fires off every 10 secs during playback. Let me know if I can help with any more details

[GarethBlain]

Cool signed up for HardCover! Looks prettier than GoodReads and seems actively supported so bonus! Excited for this intergration!

[GianniCarlo]

v5.9.0 is now live on the AppStore with the Hardcover integration! thanks again @jeremygrenier for carrying this release 🎉

[F1rebird]

Is there anything else that needs to be done other than putting in the API details under "Manage". My current book is not showing up in Hardcover

[GarethBlain]

Yeah I struggled with this.
You need to go to the books details page (swipe left on the book in the list and Details) and then search for the book and select it under the Hardcover part.
It def needs some docs.

[GianniCarlo]

Sorry I forgot to post the details of how v1 works, right now you can:

• Enable 'auto-match books', so any new audiobook that is imported into the app, will get eagerly matched with the corresponding book from Hardcover
• Enable 'auto-add to Want to Read' (this is on by default), which will register your matched book, into your Hardcover account's 'Want to Read' books right away
• Manually match any existing book in BookPlayer, from within the item details screen, and if the previous setting is enabled, it'll register the book in your Hardcover account
• Set a reading threshold based on the book's percentage completion, so you can avoid registering a book in your Hardcover account until you're sure you like it enough.

If you listen to any book that is matched with the Hardcover counterpart, it'll eventually get registered in your "Currently reading" books (this depends on the reading threshold you set), and when you're finished, it'll be moved to the "Read" books

I know there's different preferences of tracking your books, and hopefully with these options, most of the use-cases are covered

In any case, feedback is always welcome and we can always tweak/add more on how the integration works

[GarethBlain]

I’m listening to the Space Team series currently and all the books I’ve added so far all match with one book from a spinoff series. It appears to be an issue with the Hardcover’s search (search is hard to implement) as it matches only the first few words so in this case “Space Team Universe 04 - Song of Space Siren” matches with the spinoff series as that has “Space Team Universe” in it and the “Song of Space Siren” book doesn’t.
Even if I remove the universe part it then just matches all the Space Team books so selects the first. I have to remove everything bar “Song of Space Siren” to get the right book. But then other books might match without the series. As I said search issue not the integration.

Either way, worth being cautious unless you want random books in your read list! LOL 😂

Do love the integration though!

[F1rebird]

Great discussion and things for me to look at, I'll give those a shot. Thanks for the conversation and replies. And yes, agreed, this functionality will be great!