Discussion Post: Tracking Upcoming Releases from Your Favorite Authors

How do you track new releases from your favorite authors?

There are numerous things that I have come to love about blogging, and being exposed to so many wonderful new authors is just one of them.
Before I started my blog, tracking my favorite authors wasn’t too difficult. I would use a combination of Goodreads and Amazon searches to find out when their new books would be released. Once I started blogging I quickly realized this was not going to work in the long term. There must be a better way!

Solution 1…

The first site I found is Author Alerts. It is a simple, straightforward site to use. To create an account, just enter an email and a password, it’s that simple. Then the real fun begins and you can start entering the names of your favorite authors you wish to keep track of.

• Your authors will be conveniently listed alphabetically.
• There are two columns. The first one is Upcoming Releases. In this column it will tell you the number of new releases that have been found.
• The second column will say 0 Releases Last Week. When a book is released it will change to  _ Releases Last Week. I’m not sure why it says “last week” during the week a book is released, but the point is that it will tell you what books are now available.
• Finally, on the day your book is released you will receive an email letting you know it is now available.

The pros…
I love having all of my favorite authors listed in one convenient location. I also like that every night the site checks with Amazon for any new releases and updates it accordingly.

The cons…
I wish this site would email me whenever a new release is found, rather than me having to check the “Upcoming Releases”.

In summary…
I like this site. It will work for my needs and is much better than having to manually search Goodreads and Amazon author-by-author. However, I wish the website sent email notifications when a new book will be coming out in the future, not just the day of its release.

Solution 2…

My husband loves to listen to podcasts on his work commute. One day he came home and told me about a website called FictFact. It tracks the progress of your favorite series and will notify you of new releases. This site is also really easy to get started: you need to enter a user name, email, and password and you’re ready to go. Search for your favorite authors and follow the series that interest you. I added series I would like to try, as well as series that I have started to read.

• You can make your account public or private, for now I am private.
• There is a calendar feature. You can see all of the books coming out on a given day or just books in the series that you are following.
• It will track what book you are on in your series, what percentage you are through your series, and more.
• You can track your progress by using a few different tabs: Next Books, Coming Soon, To Be Read, Reading, and Read.

Below is a screenshot of some of David Baldacci’s series. I chose him because he has multiple series, so he’s a perfect example of what this site has to offer. The books that have been faded out with the checkmarks are the books I have read. The faded books with the red circle are the ones I have chosen to skip (I don’t usually read the “half” books between the next release). Finally, the books in full color I have yet to read.

Pros…
I love how it tracks your progress in a series. It is easy in a glance to see where you have been, where you are headed, and when the next book in the series is coming out.

Cons…
When an author starts a new series not already listed on the site you will not be notified. The site is more complicated to navigate than Author Alerts, but certainly not so difficult that it can’t be learned.

In summary…
I think this site is great for tracking series and I plan on using it in conjunction with Author Alerts (or another similar site). This should solve one of the drawbacks to this site, which is when a new series is started by your favorite author you will be unaware of it. *Note – At this time I am unsure whether it will notify by email when a new book is added to a series before the release date.

To Sum Up…

I like both of these sites and think they would work for my needs, but I still have to wonder if there is a better way. An all-in-one site that will notify me as soon as a new release is announced would be perfect.

How do you keep track of the new releases of your favorite authors?

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Happy Reading!