A book app unlike any other

01. How do I get access?

Readwise Books is in an invite-only beta while we shake out the last wrinkles. If you're a Readwise subscriber, you already have access: install the app and sign in with your Readwise account. Otherwise, join the waitlist above, or ask a friend who's already in to send you an invite from inside the app. We plan to open the doors to everyone before the end of the year. (Beta means we're still adding features and fixing glitches as they come up. The core experience is solid.)

02. Is it free?

Yes. Like Kindle or Apple Books, you pay for the ebooks you buy in our bookshop, but the app itself is free, forever, and you don't need a Readwise subscription to use it. You can also upload your own EPUBs and track books you read elsewhere without buying anything at all. Ebook prices are set by publishers, so they're the same as you'd find anywhere else. All this said, we are working on an optional membership for Readwise Books with various perks. It'll be included with a full Readwise subscription at no extra charge.

03. Why would I use this instead of Kindle or Goodreads?

The honest answer depends on what kind of reader you are, but here's what testers keep telling us. It's a bookstore, a reading app, and a tracker in one, so nothing has to be copied between apps. Highlighting, notes, and tags are first-class, not afterthoughts. The session tracking is a dimension of your reading no other app has, and it tends to make people read more without goals or guilt. There's optional companionship. Finally, it's an independent alternative to Amazon, Apple, and Google in the book space, built by a small team that’s passionate about ebooks and digital reading.

04. Can I use it on my Kindle or Kobo?

Unfortunately, no. Amazon and Kobo run their e-readers as closed ecosystems and don't allow apps like ours on them. Readwise Books runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets, and, the part we're most excited about, on the new generation of open, Android-based e-ink readers like BOOX and Daylight Computer, which we've optimized the app for. Every member of our team reads on one.

05. Can I read my Kindle books in Readwise Books?

Yes and no. Publishers forbid moving an ebook from one platform to another (that's what DRM is for), so you can't import your Kindle ebooks and read them in our native reader. What you can do: connect your Kindle account, and your whole Kindle library lands on your shelves. Open one of those books and it loads in Kindle's Cloud Reader inside Readwise Books, where your reading sessions are tracked just like a book bought from us. If you have DRM-free EPUBs, you can upload those and read them natively.

06. Can I track books I read somewhere else, like print, audiobooks, or library books?

Yes. Add the book to your Currently Reading shelf and start tracking a manual session by tapping its cover. For a print book, snap a photo of your starting and ending pages (or just type the numbers) and the app works out your progress and words read. You can even highlight a paper page with your camera. The same goes for audiobooks and for ebooks you read in other apps. Those sessions show up in your stats and your feed like any other. You won't get the fine-grained detail you get from reading in the app, but it all counts.

07. Does it work outside the US?

Yes, with one catch: our publisher agreements are territory-specific and we’re only selling ebooks in the United States for now, so the bookshop isn't open where you are yet. We're working on standing up other territories asap. Everything else works anywhere: upload your own EPUBs, connect Kindle and Goodreads, track your print and audiobooks, read alongside friends, and sync your highlights to Readwise.

08. Do I own the ebooks I buy? Can I download them?

You own them the same way you do on any other ebook platform. Publishers require DRM from every retailer (Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo, and now us), so purchases live in your Readwise Books library, readable on all of your devices, with highlights that sync to Readwise. We believe you should be able to download a copy of what you've bought, and we're working through the publisher approvals needed to add that. And for the natural follow-up: Readwise is a sustainable company originally founded in 2017. We're not going anywhere.

09. Do I have to share my reading?

No. The social side is optional. You can set your profile to private so new followers need your approval, mark individual books as private, or simply not follow anyone and keep your stats to yourself with a private profile. If you do share, what your followers see is that you're reading, and how much. It's meant to feel like reading in a coffee shop, not posting to a social network.

10. Does Readwise Books use AI?

Some of it does, carefully, and you can turn all of it off. There are optional reading tools (define a word as the author used it, look up a character, translate a phrase, ask a question about what you've read so far) that only work on ebooks you upload yourself or from publishers who have explicitly opted in. We don't train AI models, and we don't let our AI providers train on your data or on book text. There's also text-to-speech for uploaded EPUBs, which is an accessibility feature and stays off until you turn it on. The full policy is at readwise.io/books/ai-policy.

11. Can I import my library from Goodreads or StoryGraph?

Goodreads, yes. Sign in to Goodreads inside the app and your shelves, ratings, reviews, and finished dates come over. It's a one-way import for now; we don't write anything back to Goodreads. Kindle works the same way. StoryGraph and other trackers aren't supported yet, but they're on the list.

12. Is there a web or desktop version?

Not yet. Readwise Books is an iOS and Android app (which includes Android e-ink readers). The bookshop itself is on the web, and any EPUB you upload also lives in Reader, which has web and desktop apps. A web version of Readwise Books is on the roadmap to add.

13. Do you sell print books and audiobooks too?

Yes. The bookshop carries print books (fulfilled by the same distributor Bookshop.org uses) and audiobooks alongside ebooks. We've put most of our energy into the ebook experience so far. Audiobooks play in the app, and deeper support for them is in the works.