Help
What do I need to do to join lovelybooks?
My profile
Marcel Proust Questionnaire
Bookmarks
Bookshelf
Add books to bookshelf or booklist
Booklists
What about books which do not have any ISBN number?
Book Import/Export
Reading status
Tags
What means Browse?
Book ratings
Why should I rate books?
Reviews
Buying a Book
Messages
Friends
Invitations
Neighbours
Similarities
Visitors
Online-Status
Groups
Send book recommendations
Questions or Hints?
Teamblog
RSS Feed
Widget
Authors
lovelybooks is a community for booklovers. lovelybooks enables you to meet readers, authors and other bookworms with similar tastes. You can create your own virtual bookshelf, rate and recommend books, write reviews, initiate your own reading groups, talk with like-minded people and much more.
To get access to all the features of lovelybooks you need to register with a valid email address. As lovelybooks is a virtual community you need internet access (e.g. Firefox or Internet Explorer). You will also need to ensure that JavaScript is activated.
All your personal data is stored in your personal profile. This data is only visible to you. You can modify your email address and password from within your profile. It is possible to specify whether other members may see information such as your email address or not. You can also upload your photo and tell other users a bit about yourself. You will also find the Marcel-Proust-Questionnaire. Take the time to fill it in, it helps other users to better understand who you are and it is fun as well.
Please note that you cannot change your lovelybooks user name at a later stage.
The Marcel Proust Questionnaire was a popular parlour game in the nineteenth century, and was completed by Proust himself on several occasions. It is now used by journalists around the world as an interesting way of finding out about people. It only takes a short time so do fill it out. It helps other users understand you better and is a bit of fun as well.
Bookmarks emerge from "reading a lot". In the future bookmarks will play a more prominent role in lovelybooks and open up into competitions. The more you share your reading-experiences with the community, the more bookmarks you collect:
- for each book in your shelf you receive a bookmark
- for each book with tags you get another bookmark
- for each helpful answer to a question you receive 10 bookmarks
- for each book with an evaluation (starlets) you get another bookmark
- for each comment in the group forum you will get 5 bookmarks
- for each review you will get 10 bookmarks
- for each friend you invite you will get 10 bookmarks
- for each book recommendation you will get 10 bookmarks
Your bookshelf is the main feature of lovelybooks. You can collect any book you want on your virtual shelf be it on your physical shelves at home or not. It does not matter whether you have read a book already or not.
To find a book enter the main menu category "Books". At the top of the screen are the search bars, where you can enter keywords (e.g. author name or book title) or the ISBN and search in either lovelybooks or amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. If you would like to add the book you can click on both the green arrow to the right of the book or click on the cover and drag the book into your bookshelf located on the right of the screen. To explain things more clearly, we've created a small video clip showing you how to search for books and how to add them to your bookshelf. (see video)
You can create your own personalized book collections - like a stack of books in real life! For example you might want to create wish lists of books which you would like to read or a list of your favourite books.
To create a list you need to click the button "add booklist" in the taskbar and enter the name of the new list.
With the drag & drop field you can choose either to display your complete bookshelf or to display one of the booklists you have created. Now, when you add new books, these are added to the list which is currently displayed (see video). lovelybooks offers the following predefined lists: "bookshelf", "unread" and "currently being read".
Soon we will be able to access databases which will help us to find such books as well. Please be patient with us.
lovelybooks offers the possibility to import booklist(s). You can import booklists either to your bookshelf or in a newly created booklist. Please left-mouse-click the orange arrow next to the RSS function in either your bookshelf or in the list into which you wish to import books. This opens a menu from which you please choose 'import'.
You can only import books from a text file (.txt). Books can be imported either in ISBN 10 digit or 13 digit form. Each ISBN needs to be followed by a line-break.
When you choose the 'export-functionality', you will automatically receive a list in such format that enables you to export your book data. Once you have exported book data and save the file, the file will enable you to re-import data again.
The function 'Second Life' generates a ZIP file with pictures of the exported book covers and additionally a text file.
This allows you to let others know whether you have already read this book, are currently reading it or have not started reading it yet. Juct click on the appropriate symbol.
Tags are simple descriptive keywords for each book. You can use them to describe the genre or the storyline, e.g. novel, thriller, lovestory, London.
Tags enable you to quickly find books around your specific interests. You can only allocate tags to books which are on your bookshelf or in one of your booklists. You can then click on the book and define tags for it. Simply fill in the respective tag-field. (see video)
Browse helps you find books you like. You can drag and drop tags from the tag field (the big orange box) into the box beneath it. After that lovelybooks shows you which books have been marked with this tag, who is reading it and what they think of it. You can refine the search by inputting several tags at once. Browse also helps you find other users with reading interests similar to your own and could give you insider tips on what to read next.
While surfing lovelybooks you can click on any tag (including in other users bookshelves) and lovelybooks will show all the books tagged in this way.
You can rate a book by allocating up to 5 stars to it (1 star means "not that good", 5 stars mean "this is brilliant"). You can only rate books that are on your bookshelf or in one of your booklists. Simply click on the book and define the number of stars you would like to allocate (e.g. for 4 stars click on the 4th star from the left).
Rating books enables you to track and remember your personal likes and dislikes. And it enables all readers on lovelybooks to share their opinions. You will also be able to view recommendations based on your preferences.
In the reviews section you can give your detailed, personal opinions about a book in writing. To write reviews, you need to have the book on your bookshelf or in one of your booklists. You can click on the book and write a review. Just type into the field "My reviews". (see video)
You can buy every book on lovelybooks by clicking on the button "Buy at amazon". Currently we only have amazon as a partner but we are planning to include further online shops and booksellers in the future.
You can send private messages to other members. lovelybooks offers two ways to do this:
1. Click on the user name of the person you'd like to write to. You can send the message by clicking on the "send message" button.
2. Click on "messages" in your instruction menu, then click on "send message" and fill in the user name of the person the message should be sent to. It is also possible to choose several user names at the same time by separating the names with a comma.
You can start friendships with users that seem interesting to you, or with users you already know or with anyone you would like to get to know. To do so, just click on the user name. Then click the button "Request friendship" and a friendship request will be sent. If the person accepts the invitation, he/she will stay in your friend list unless one of you wishes to end the friendship.
Do you have other booklover friends who might be interested in lovelybooks? Would you like to be able to explore the bookshelves of your best friends? Would you like to get your colleagues to generate recommendations from your bookshelf? With the function "invitation" you can inform them about lovelybooks very quickly and easily. Together with the invitation they will receive a link which enables them to register directly. The more members start to communicate with each other in lovelybooks the more fun the community becomes!
Your neighbours are other lovelybooks members who share your book tastes. They have rated the same books similarly to you and/or used the same tags as you do. Neighbour lists are generated automatically by lovelybooks.
Similarities show which books, tags and groups you have in common with other users. When you click on someone’s profile the similarities are displayed on the right of the screen.
This function shows you who has looked at your bookshelf since your last visit.
If you are using lovelybooks, a little green button appears next to your user name. This button is also visible to other members. In the menu "members" and the category "online" you can find a list of all members who are currently online.
Discussing is only possible when you are logged in. "Discuss" shows you the activities of your friends and your groups. Furthermore you are able to see which users are currently online or chatting.
"Discuss" also provides you a micro-community to the books you are currently reading (books with status "currently reading"). You may discuss them with other users who are reading the same books.
If you have any questions about a book, an author or other things you may ask it at „users asking users“. Every user has the opportunity to answer the question by sending a personal answer to you which you will receive in your message box. You can mark the answer as "helpful", then the question will disappear from "Discuss". If the answer is not helpful, it will stay there as long as someone gives you a satisfying answer.
There are groups around particular reading topics on lovelybooks. These groups enable you to communicate with other members about books and authors related to a certain topic. For these discussions, every group has a bulletin board. There you can start a new topic or join a conversation which is already established.
If you find a group you'd like to join, click on the group name and then on the button "join group". Not every group is open for everybody. In some groups you need to wait until the group founder accepts your request. If for some reason a group does not want to accept you as a member, you will receive an email notification.
If you don't find a group with a topic that interests you, you can simply start your own group. To do so just click on the menu item "groups" and then on the button "create group" (see video). You can then decide whether you want the group to be accessible to all users or only to those whose requests to join are accepted by you. If you decide on the latter, you will have to respond to each request. If you refuse a request, the user receives a short message that his or her request was refused. A group founder is also able to remove members from a group. Just click on the button "members" in your group, then click on the user name and then click on the wastebasket.
If you have enjoyed a certain book very much and you would like to recommend it to family and friends who are not yet members of lovelybooks, just click on the book in your shelf and choose the button "recommend". You can then enter the relevant email address(es) and send it to your friends with a short message.
In the tab "groups" there are two special lovelybooks groups: "lovelybooks news" and "help". Here you can contact us with any questions or problems around lovelybooks or you can catch up on what is new. Just stop by from time to time! Suggestions for improvements or new features are always welcome!
Our Teamblog will keep you informed about all news and innovations concerning lovelybooks. Have a look from time to time. We are looking forward to your comments and ideas!
You will find an orange button above every bookshelf: this is the RSS symbol and it lets you stay up to date with any changes on that bookshelf. By subscribing (click on the button and then put the address into an RSS feedreader) changes will be sent to your feedreader as soon as new books are added or changes are made.
In Tools you will find a widget that lets you put your bookshelf on other websites or blogs. You can decide for yourself how many and which books are shown. If you choose the option "Book rotation in blog badge”, books will be updated every time the site is visited. To get the widget simply copy the code on the widget page and then paste into the code on the page where you want it to go.
If you are an author then send us a message letting us know and we can mark you as author (with a little green pen!) This lets other users know about the kind of books you like to read. As a pre-condition you have to have one title available at bookshops.
How to add books to your bookshelf
How to create a new booklist
How to add tags to your books
How to work with groups
Register to get access to all features.
