Readwise takes on Amazon’s Kindle and Goodreads with its new app for book lovers

Readwise, the creator of a read-it-later app and digital reading companion, has unveiled its latest venture, Readwise Books. This new application is an e-book store that also enables users to monitor their reading progress, comparable to Amazon's Goodreads. The startup describes the app as a "cross between Kindle and the Goodreads apps," as it provides a unified platform for purchasing, reading, and tracking books.

However, Readwise Books aims to provide more comprehensive reading insights than Goodreads, including metrics such as words read, pace, depth, immersion, and session count. Additionally, the new store offers millions of ebooks from major publishers and others, initially in the U.S., with more countries to follow. Both print books (fulfilled by Bookshop.org’s distributor) and some audiobooks are also available.

The launch occurs amidst a surge of new reading apps and tracking tools, all striving to rival Goodreads by incorporating features such as book clubs, widgets, enhanced discovery tools, goal-setting, improved lists and organizational features, and habit tracking. Despite this competition, few indie developers have ventured into creating an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle e-books store, which dominates the market with an 83% share, including both Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

While Kindle's main strength is its comprehensive e-book solution, Readwise aims to build a community around reading, featuring tools for purchasing and uploading ebooks, tracking them (similar to Goodreads), sharing reading progress with friends, and more. The app also permits tracking sessions via Kindle's browser-based Cloud Reader, snapping photos of physical books, and uploading DRM-free EPUBs.

Users can have the app read their ebooks aloud through text-to-speech. Readwise believes its detailed metrics could attract users, likening them to a "Strava for reading," a reference to the metrics-driven running app. They explain that the desire to read books often comes with guilt, and tracking sessions can make reading more measurable and thus more enjoyable.

Early users have reported that the app encourages them to read more without relying on willpower tactics like goal-setting, streaks, or scheduling. With publisher approval, the app could incorporate AI-powered features, such as session recaps, word and phrase translations, and location-aware question-asking, among others. Unlike Goodreads' closed ecosystem, Readwise embraces open technology, offering a public API and MCP server that supports AI agents for conducting book research, creating a personal books page on a user's website, and even syncing with a user's hackable e-reader to automatically log sessions.

The Readwise Books app remains free, with some AI features available behind a paywall. The app's previous reading and tracking tools are priced at $7.99 per month each or $9.99 per month for both. Currently in beta, the new app requires an invitation to access, unless you are already a Readwise subscriber.