1. 1. What is Bookhuddle and how does it work?

    Bookhuddle is a free book-focused social networking and book reference website created to help you discover, organize, and share book information.

    Bookhuddle has a database with millions of books that you can search through or browse to find the books that you want or discover new ones you didn't know about. For each book, you will see detailed book information including editorial reviews, user reviews from Amazon.com® and Bookhuddle, books that are similar to the particular book, book-related discussions among users, other users on Bookhuddle that are reading the book, and so on.

    As a registered user, you will have a profile that you can display information about yourself and some of your book-related information (your lists, your reviews, etc). There are lots of features available to help you discover, organize, and share book information. Some of these features are book lists, book tags, reviews, discussions, recommendations, and groups or online book clubs.

    Social interaction is also at the core of Bookhuddle and this is another aspect of the site that helps provide you value by facilitating the discovery, organization, and sharing of information through the user community and your social network. By registering you can connect and become "friends" with other users on the site, you can create and participate in discussions related to a book or form an online book club and discuss things with the members of your book club. You can interact with other users with similar interests and reading preferences, find out what others are reading or have read, and much more.

  2. 2. How do I get started?

    Just go to our Sign Up page to create an account. It's simple, it's free, and it only takes seconds to do. All you need is a valid email address.

    Once your create and activate your account, you can:

    • Build your library of books by searching or browsing for your books and adding them to your lists.
    • Invite your friends to join Bookhuddle to build your social network.
    • Create or join an online book club or group.
    • Read reviews and postings from other users, write reviews, or participate in discussions with other users.
    • Send book recommendations to your friends.

  3. 3. Using Bookhuddle

    1. 3.1. My Dashboard

      This is a page in the system that gives you quick access to all your information on Bookhuddle and allows you to manage it. This is the first page you see in the system when you log in.

    2. 3.2. My Profile

      Each user in the system has a profile page. Your profile page displays the information that you specify in your account, your lists, your reviews, and so on. This is the page others will see when they click on your user image or user name anywhere on Bookhuddle. You can control who can view your profile by changing the privacy setting of your profile. After you log in, click on "My Account" on the top right corner of any page to access your account settings and click on "Privacy" to change your privacy settings.

    3. 3.3. My Account

      After you log in, click on "My Account" on the top right corner of any page to access the "My Account" pages. Through these pages you can change your profile information, change your picture, control your privacy settings and activity feed.

    4. 3.4. I forgot my password, what do I do?

      Click here and type in the email you used to register on Bookhuddle. We'll send you instructions for how to reset your password.

    5. 3.5. Discovering Books

      There are many ways to discover books in the system. These are just a few:

      1. 3.5.1. Search

        Search for books by keyword, title, author, or ISBN. A search box appears on every page on the system on the upper right hand corner. Book search can also be accessed by clicking on the "Books" link on the menu bar on every page.

      2. 3.5.2. Browsing Books

        • Click on the "Books" link on the menu bar (found on any page) and you will be taken to the Books homepage where you will find a list of book categories.
        • For each book category, Bookhuddle displays the new releases, top sellers, most listed, most recommended, most reviewed, and some random books and gives you the option to find more.
        • Anywhere in the system you see a book image, you can click on the image to access the book details. On the book details page, you will find references to other books that are related to the particular books.

      3. 3.5.3. Browsing Book Lists

        Click on the "Lists" link on the menu bar and you will have access to most, if not all, the book lists in the system. Clicking on any book list will take you to the details of the list where you'll find all the books in the list.

      4. 3.5.4. Definitive Book Lists

        These are reference book lists that you will find on the Book List homepage under the "Definitive Book Lists" section. These lists include New York Time's 100 Notable Books of 2007, Oprah's Book Club book list, BBC's Big Read list, Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels, and many more.

      5. 3.5.5. Recommendations

        • Your friends can recommend you books through the system or via email notifications.
        • You can post a discussion message asking for a book recommendation based on the kind of topic you are interested in and other users can offer suggestions.

      6. 3.5.6. Notifications

        Through notifications, you discover what books your friends are adding to their lists, what books they are reviewing, and so on simply by visiting your Dashboard page, your friends' or other users' profiles.

      7. 3.5.7. Can't Find The Book You Are Searching For?

        Let us know and we will do our best to add the book to our database as soon as possible. You can inform us of missing books through the Feedback page.

  4. 4. Organizing Books

    There are many ways to organize your books in the system.

    1. 4.1. Book Lists

      1. 4.1.1. What are Book Lists?

        You can organize your books by putting them into lists. By default, you get 5 book lists that can be immediately used: Books I own, Books I've read, Books I'm reading, Books I want to read, and My favorite books. But you can create any number of lists to help you organize and track your books in a way that suits your needs and desire.

      2. 4.1.2. How do I add a book to a list?

        Anywhere you see a book image in the system, you can add the book to one of your lists by clicking on the "Add to list" link or the book list icon and specifying the list you want to add the book to.

      3. 4.1.3. How do I remove a book from a list?

        Access the list detail page and simply remove the book from the list by clicking on the X button.

      4. 4.1.4. Can I control who can see my list details?

        Yes, you can control the privacy setting of the list. You can specify this when you create a new list or by editing the list properties of an existing list.

    2. 4.2. Book Tags

      1. 4.2.1. What are book tags?

        A tag is simply a keyword that you can associate with a book, serving as a way to personally categorize the book. By tagging several books with the same tag, these books automatically become related. You can search for the specific tag and the books that you or other users in the system have tagged with the specific value will be found.

      2. 4.2.2. How do I add a tag to a book?

        Most places where you see a book image, you can click on the tag icon or the "tag this book" link.

      3. 4.2.3. How do I add a tag to a book?

        Most places where you see a book image, you can click on the tag icon or the "tag this book" link.

      4. 4.2.4. Can I remove a tag?

        Yes, you can remove any of your book tags from any book. This can be done from the book detail page.

      5. 4.2.5. Tag Cloud

        A tag cloud is visual representation of the list of tags and the number of items associated with a tag. If you have tagged books with the tags: read and favorite. If you have tagged 20 books with "read" and 5 books with "favorite", then the "read" tag will appear larger in the tag cloud indicating that there are more books tagged with that value relative to "favorite", in this case. Your tag cloud can be found on your profile.

      6. 4.2.6. Book Lists & Tags

        Lists and tags are to complimentary way to organize book information. As a convenience, we automatically add a book to one of your 5 predefined lists whenever you tag a book with one of these keywords: read, reading, want to read, own, favorite. For example, by tagging a book with the keyword "reading", the book is automatically added to your "Books I'm reading" list.

  5. 5. Sharing Books and Information

    There are many ways to share books and information on Bookhuddle; some require some action on your part, others are done automatically by Bookhuddle.

    1. 5.1. Reviews

      You can write a review for any book to let the world know your opinion of the book. You can also rate the book on a scale from 1 through 5 and your rating will contribute to the overall Bookhuddle rating of the book.

    2. 5.2. Discussions

      Discussions are a way to share information with other users. Discussions are conversations between two or more users on Bookhuddle. Discussions can take place within a Bookhuddle book club or outside a book club such as on a book detail page or through site-wide discussions.

    3. 5.3. Book Lists

      You can organize your books using lists. You can send your lists to users on Bookhuddle or send links to your lists to users outside of Bookhuddle. Depending on your list privacy settings, your friends or other users will be able to browse through your lists to find out what books you are reading, have read, and son on.

    4. 5.4. Groups or Book Clubs

      You can form or participate in any number of groups or book clubs within Bookhuddle to share ideas, opinions, thoughts, and learn from others.

    5. 5.5 Notification

      Bookhuddle has a powerful notification system that automatically notifies your network when certain events happen in the system, such as you reviewing a book or adding a book to a list. You can control who and what kind of information is distributed through this system to suit your privacy needs. You can manage these settings by clicking on the "My Account" link on the top right corner of any page, then click on "Privacy".

  6. 6. Building Your Friend Network

    1. 6.1. How do I invite my friends to join Bookhuddle and become part of my friend network?

      If you are logged in, click on the Invite link found on the right side of the menu and fill out the form to send out invitations to your friends. Bookhuddle will send your friends an email inviting them to join your Bookhuddle network. Once they sign up and log in, a request to become your friend will appear on their dashboard.

    2. 6.2. How do I become friends with another Bookhuddle member?

      When viewing a member's profile, you can click on the "Add to friends" link to send the member a friend request. If the member accepts it, that person becomes a member of your friend network.

    3. 6.3. Is it possible to end a friendship connection?

      We hope friends can always stay friends, but if you would like to remove someone from your Bookhuddle friend network, you can do that by click on the "Remove from friends" link. The "Remove from friends" is available in the profile page of the friend you would like to remove or on your "My friends" page.

  7. 7. Groups Or Online Book Clubs

    Bookhuddle supports and encourages book clubs or groups. Any Bookhuddle user can create a book club. Book clubs can be open for anyone to join or they can be closed and users must be invited to join the club.

    You can invite your friends within or outside of Bookhuddle to join your group or club, add books to your book club's reading lists, have discussions on the books your reading, etc.

    1. 7.1. How do I create a book club?

      Simply click on "Create a book club" link in the "Clubs" menu.

    2. 7.2. How do I delete a book club?

      If you are a book club leader, you can delete the book club by going to the book club's settings page. Deleting the book club will permanently delete the book club's book lists and discussions.

    3. 7.3. How do I invite people to join my book club?

      During the creation of a book club, you have the option to invite users to join your book club. You can invite Bookhuddle friends or users outside of Bookhuddle.

      If you want to invite people to join a book club that already exists, simply access the book club page and click on "Invite others to join" link.

    4. 7.4. Book Club Book Lists

      Each book club has 3 default book lists to help manage the book club's reading queue, but any number of lists can be created if needed.

    5. 7.5. Book Club Leaders

      A leader is someone who can control the book club settings, lists, members, and discussions. A leader can also promote other members to book club leader status to give other the ability to control those features of the book club. By default, the creator of a book club is the leader.

    6. 7.6. How do I leave a book club?

      Visit the book club page and click on the "leave book club" link.

  8. 8. Additional Help Resources

    If this FAQ page did not answer your questions, post your questions to the Bookhuddle FAQ & Help discussion forum to have one of the Bookhuddle members or Bookhuddle Team members answer them for you.