SOS: Serious Overload of Series discussion
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No Fict Fact ~ What are you using?
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Michelle
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Jun 20, 2019 03:52PM
Help!! I am seriously missing FictFact!! What are you using now??
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I created a next in series shelf here. Beyond that I have no idea. This is the only place I know of where you can track books and see all the books in a series. I loved being able to go to Fictfact and see all my next in a series books in one list.. Before it shut down I put them all on my next in series shelf.
That was a good idea Mary, I'm sorry I didn't do the same.
Well, it would take some time but if you've been marking books read here, you can go through your read list and still do it on goodreads. I started a spreadsheet too, and while I love populating spreadsheets (not sarcastic, I really do), I doubt I will keep up with it since it won't automatically add newly published books.
With so many series in play, over 700, it would take a lot of work and like you keeping up a spreadsheet will get old really fast.I might do one for the In Death books as I read them out of order, it was what I could get at the library at the time. I'll have to think about it, maybe I'll just continue with GR.
I’ve been hunting the web for an alternative but haven’t found anything I really like or that comes close to FF. I’ve followed all my series authors on Amazon and they send an email when new books coming out for each. The problem is that they seem to come out irregularly and sometimes a month(s) after the book has been released. Goodreads sometimes sends one too, but they don’t seem to occur regularly either. But, beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.
Might be better to follow the authors, but then if its like some of my authors, you'll get lots of stuff you don't want. Just tell me when a new book comes out! Not 3 or more emails a week that it's coming, coming, here, did you miss it, in case you missed all my emails .......
I maintain 2 exclusive shelves, - TBP (to be published - prioritised in date to be released order - I do this is manually as I add each book. I keep track by typing the projected release date in the notes section)As I read a book, I add the next one to my Next in Series shelf. I don't add a book until I have a read the book before, so on this shelf there is one book from each of the series that I am currently reading.
Finding books to add:
There is a handy function on GR -
Browse - new releases - my authors
will give you the upcoming releases of authors that are already on your shelves. Unfortunately you can't edit to say which authors.
I also use the website Fresh Fiction: http://freshfiction.com/
and FictionDB: https://www.fictiondb.com/series/seri...
As an aside: my Want to Read shelf only holds 1st in series books or standalones.
I also maintain non-exclusive shelves - Series Complete, Series up to date, and Series did not finish.
That sounds pretty good Loriidae.
You are all so organized! I don’t take advantage of the shelves on GR. I only use the want-to-read shelf: the first 100 is next in series books in order if release date, the second 100 are released next-in-series books that I haven’t read yet.....the rest of the books on that shelf are wishes to read but I may never get the time to start. Everything with a priority read is under 300. Not ideal but that’s what I have.
Loriidae wrote: "I maintain 2 exclusive shelves, - TBP (to be published - prioritised in date to be released order - I do this is manually as I add each book. I keep track by typing the projected release date in th..."Is it weird to be drooling a little at the thought of all that organization? You make me want to spend all day on my laptop mimicking your setup.
Maybe I wouldn't have such a hard time picking out what to read next if I had a better list to go by? I never used FictFact, but it was clearly a very useful tool.
Loriidae: that's now I use my Next in series shelf. I only put the next one for me on it. Still miss Fictfact but at least this is something. I have a wish list shelf here and I will sometimes shelve all the books in a series on that one. I also have shelves here that tell me where I can find the book.
I don't get any alerts about new book releases for the reasons mentioned above. It's too unreliable and they send too many. Plus some authors have multiple series going at once and I might not be at the newest book on all of them.
Yeah, it’s too bad we can’t select series to follow on authors’ websites and get emailed about those only. I have a lot of different “series” shelves, similar to some mentioned already, and that helps. I’d think that with GR a part of Amazon now there’d be an easy way to guarantee new release notifications. But a lot of times books aren’t added here and our helpful librarians add them for us as they’re caught.
Keep sharing those organization tips and hints. And, if you find any other websites or apps, please share. 😁
I'm using FantasticFiction and FictionDB for alerts (and Facebook and newsletters, as before). And for tracking the series status, the same than before: calibre. All my ebooks (my current reading now) are in calibre with their status. Some time ago, I created column for storing:* Number of books in series
* Number of books I've got
* Number of books I've read
* First non-read book in the series.
As I maintain it as part of my normal flow for managing my books, it's not time consuming (it was the first time when I created the columns, not anymore).
Note that all that information, I don't add it by hand, but I download it from goodreads with some existing plugins (and my own tweaks).
Note to the prior post: telecommunication engineer specialized in software ;)
Well done Marisa :)A very handy skill set to have and you get to manage your books as well!
That's great, Marisa! I use Calibre for converting, as needed, but haven't really set up anything special like series sorting, etc. I have been using BookPedia for over a decade (longer than GR) and it's been a life saver for me. I track every book I want, have, read, TBR, etc. It's customizable, so I'm able to create custom lists for series, impatiently waiting wishlist and so on. I can easily see books in a series, which I've read, are TBR and are pending release. You can create custom tags, genres, notes, etc. The only thing that's missing is a calendar. In place of that, I add reminders to my reminder app whenever a new book is announced with the date to buy and/or info so I can pre-order.
Does bookpedia add books for you or is it just a premade spreadsheet that you have to populate yourself?
Sandra wrote: "Well done Marisa :)A very handy skill set to have and you get to manage your books as well!"
Thank you, I think I have more info than really useful but, from time to time... can't you imagine which is the origin of the reviews for bingo with all the info?
Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "Does bookpedia add books for you or is it just a premade spreadsheet that you have to populate yourself?"You can add books by scanning bar code using camera, entering ISBN, title or author search. You can choose where the book info is pulled from: google books, open library, Abe books, amazon (multi country options), etc. So, when I enter amazon ASIN, the info is automatically populated: title, author, ASIN, genre, publisher, number of pages. I created a “series” field to fill in if not listed and tags such as vampire, shifter, etc.
I use calibre too to track all my reading and have it organized to death! It's great for organizing your books and keeping track of what you have, want to read, read next, buy, etc and is highly customizable. But alas, it doesn't know if a new book in a series is available, so like all of you, I am stuck getting that info in a variety of places.I like Loriidae's method on GR with moving the next book in a series to the shelf as she finishes one, but I basically do that with calibre. Her idea for finding new releases is helpful though.
Thanks for all the ideas - I'm still grieving over FF.
I'm literally going through my TBR shelf and reorganizing them the way Loridae did above.I've added a couple shelves to mine, though. I've also got:
Rest of Series (which I do so I'll get giveaway notifications)
Want to Read-Comics
Want to Read-Anthologies
It's actually been a pretty fun little project, and yes, I mean that. I used to keep a spreadsheet, but I think I like this better.
Holly wrote: "I'm literally going through my TBR shelf and reorganizing them the way Loridae did above.I've added a couple shelves to mine, though. I've also got:
Rest of Series (which I do so I'll get giveaw..."
Every time I try to put a TBR on a shelf it marks it as read - do you have that problem? if not how are you doing it?
Sandy wrote: "Holly wrote: "I'm literally going through my TBR shelf and reorganizing them the way Loridae did above.I've added a couple shelves to mine, though. I've also got:
Rest of Series (which I do so I..."
You have to allocate an exclusive shelf first otherwise as you have found it goes straight to read.
Are you ok with making an exclusive Shelf (a shelf above the line)?
Feel free to click on my nickname and see how mine are organised.
how do you make an exclusive shelf above the line? Not really sure how to do that?
Sandy wrote: "how do you make an exclusive shelf above the line? Not really sure how to do that?"In my books - next to Bookshelves at the top - click on edit
Click on the check box in the exclusive column for the shelf.
Also if you want to put books in a specific order as I have on my to be published Shelf also click on sortable
Remember to click on I'm done at the bottom to save your changes.
how many exclusive shelves can you have?
Sandy, looks like you can make them all exclusive, if you wanted. Here's the detail on the bookshelves page: exclusive shelves: All members have three default shelves (read, currently-reading, and to-read), which are mutually exclusive, meaning a book can only be on one of them. Members can create as many additional shelves as they like, and books can be on as many non-exclusive shelves as you desire. This may be useful for shelves such as "reference" or "gave-up-on." It may take a few minutes for the changes to propagate if you have a lot of books on this shelf.
I have separate exclusive wishlist and DNF shelves. ie: wishlist-2019, wishlist-2020, wishlist-missing-deets (for those what have no release date), etc.
This whole conversation? This is why I love Goodreads. :)
This is working well. I have made a tbr for my npr list and my D&J catchup and my next in series. I will have to play with it a bit but it looks like this will work as long as when I mark it read I also remember to look for and move the next in the series back in. Thanks for all the ideas gals! It has really helped - but it is taking a while since I had so many lol
Holly wrote: "This whole conversation? This is why I love Goodreads. :)"Yes, only fellow bookaholics would understand the angst :D
Sandra wrote: "Holly wrote: "This whole conversation? This is why I love Goodreads. :)"Yes, only fellow bookaholics would understand the angst :D"
This is SO true!!!
Love the fact that I'm not the only one desperately missing FictFact. And, I've found so many other threads with other readers saying that they can't find a comparable site. UGH.But, I just found this site online that at least LISTS all the books in many series (which is usually what I need). https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/
It doesn't keep track of which you've read and what's next but I think we're all floundering without fictfact for that!
You’re definitely not alone. Thanks for sharing that website, Joanne. I found that years ago and had forgotten all about it.
Steph wrote: "That's great, Marisa! I use Calibre for converting, as needed, but haven't really set up anything special like series sorting, etc. I have been using BookPedia for over a decade (longer than GR) ..."
Is BookPedia only for Mac or Apple users?
Yeah, sorry, Sam. I double checked their website to see if they'd added a PC/Windows version, but nothing as of now - it's Mac-compatible only.
Hey guys, I popped over to FictFact's GR group to see what alternatives members were suggesting and came across these: Author Alarms
Author Alerts
Order of Books
RLBB's Book Releases
*I haven't checked any out yet, so I'm not sure how they compare.
Also, Thenia commented in the FictFact GR group:
Hey guys, I have decided to work on a FictFact version 2.0 but it will take some time since I have barely begun looking into options on how to host and set it up.Go, Thenia! Of course, let us know what, if anything, SOS can do to help.
I'll focus on the Next books list and Book Release Calendar to begin with and we'll go from there.
Are there any other features you think are absolutely essential? Any suggestions welcome!
Steph wrote: "Hey guys, I popped over to FictFact's GR group to see what alternatives members were suggesting and came across these: ..."Thx Steph. Great news on the poss of a replacement, and some others to consider in the meantime.
Thanks for the websites! What wonderful news!
Bookpedia looks super interesting so I have downloaded it, thanks. I hate how disorganised my book lists are and nothing particularly has come close to being neat and easy to use and update!
Cool! I hope you like it as much I do. I’ve been using it for over a decade. It may take some time to get all your books in your library and organized how ya like, but once you do hopefully you’ll find it very helpful. 😊
Welcome 😊 Lemme know how you’re liking it or if I can answer any questions.
