I Also Signed Up For Library Thing: Here Are My Thoughts

As I was figuring out and finalizing my Litsy account, I saw a couple of mentions of LibraryThing. So, of course, I was curious. I looked into it and decided to sign up for it. I did a bit of looking into it, both on LibraryThing's website and through a bit of Googling.

What is LibraryThing? It's a social media website and app where you can store, share, and catalog books. It was created by Tim Spalding in 2005 and now has over 2 million users. You can use it on your computer, phone, or other electronic devices. Unlike Litsy, which I described as a good combination between bookstagram and Goodreads, LibraryThing feels like a better, cleaner version of Goodreads.

Something else that I like about LibbyThing is that you can favorite authors. On Goodreads, you have to create a shelf of your favorite authors. However, LibbyThing allows you to just favorite authors without any extra steps or shelves. You just have to search for the author, and then on their profile, you'll be able to favorite them.

As I'm writing this, I'm still figuring LibraryThing out. (This post will be up a couple months after I created my LibraryThing profile.) For the most part, it's relatively easy to understand. As I said above, it's essentially Goodreads, but better, cleaner, and more organized. I'll still be using Goodreads, but I do plan to use LibbyThing (and Litsy) more often once I get the hang of it.

I Tried Out Litsy: Here Are My Thoughts

I had heard about Litsy once sometime last year, meant to write down its name (but forgot to), forgot the name, and then subsequently forgot about the app. However, as I was searching around for inspiration for book blog posts, I stumbled upon a post that discussed the app. (To view that post, click here.)

What is Litsy? It's an iOS and Android app, created by Todd Lawton and Jeff LeBlanc in 2016, is a social media website and app that is based around books and reading. Think of it as the best combination of Instagram and Goodreads: you can make posts, you're on a social media platform that is solely for the bookish community, you can update your reading, books, and so much more.

From what I've been able to tell so far, it is a good app. Since it was made relatively recently, especially in comparison to Goodreads, it can be hard to come about certain books - recent releases, certain genres (i.e. history, my favorite), debut authors, and authors/publishers who don't have a wide berth of publicity or renown. (Goodreads came about in 2006 and Litsy in 2016, an entire decade between the two.)

So far, I haven't posted anything to Litsy. I did import my Goodreads library to Litsy. (It took me a couple minutes to fully figure out how to do it.) Some of the books were skipped, and I'm not entirely sure which ones or why, although it's not a big deal for me tbh. However, I'm going to keep trying out Litsy, and possibly even start posting. (Although it'll probably be the exact same posts as my bookstagram, so we'll see.)