FAQ

Who is Nightstand for?

Nightstand is an app for readers. Whether you read e-books, audiobooks, or physical books, Nightstand can help you organize the books you want to read and record the books you've finished.

Is this private? Do you use my book lists for anything?

Nightstand is completely private to you and your device. The books you add are stored in your iCloud account. If you login with your Apple ID on multiple devices, your Nightstand data will appear on those devices via iCloud. There is no user account required to use Nightstand. We do not save, store, sell, or analyze our data. If you import data into Nightstand, only the ISBN is sent to our server to retrieve book metadata (title, author, cover image). Imported ISBNs are not tied to a user account on our backend.

I have so many books in Goodreads — can I add them to Nightstand?

Yes, you can import your books from Goodreads. Click on More in the menu and follow the steps for uploading your Goodreads export.

How do I add a book?

From the homepage pick the shelf you want to add to: TBR or Finished, then click the + button. In the search you can enter a title, title and author, ISBN, or paste a URL for a book you have saved on your phone (this could be a link to a bookseller website Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Amazon, etc).

Nightstand will search our book database for a match and return results to you.

If you don't see the book you are looking for in the results:

• Try searching the title and author. Sometimes there are too many books with the same title.
• You can add the book manually — scroll to the bottom and click the add button to type in the title/author details.

You can also add a book from Safari on your phone. From a book detail page on a bookseller site (B&N, Bookshop.org, etc) click on the share icon in Safari, then click the Nightstand logo. Nightstand will open and you can add the book to your TBR or Finished shelf.

Can I add a book that is coming out soon?

Yes! Nightstand has data for pre-release books. Publishers provide this data at different times, so you may not find a book the moment it is announced, but Nightstand generally has book info for books coming out in the next 6 months or so. You can also add a book manually if a coming-soon book isn't yet in our dataset.

A note on upcoming release dates: our book database contains millions of records from publishers all over the world. The release dates come from the publisher but are not localized to your location (we don't track your location), so you may see the US release date or different release dates for the same book (one for US and one for another country). Apologies if this causes confusion about a book you are looking forward to!

What if the book I searched doesn't have a cover?

Cover images are provided by our backend data source. Sometimes we don't have a cover or the cover image has not yet been provided by the publisher. The cover images will update from our server occasionally, so if a pre-release book returns a "cover coming soon" image, the image will update in your app once the publisher sends an update to our database.

If you have a specific cover image you want to use, you can change a cover image on the book edit page.

You may also add your own cover to a book you are typing in manually — just in case you are adding your favorite uncle's self-published murder mystery.

Can I share books with friends?

Yes! While Nightstand does not connect with friends or show you other people's book reviews, you can share your favorite books with friends.

Tap on a book image or title on your TBR or Finished shelf, then tap on the share button in the upper right corner.

• Recommend to a Friend sends a text to a friend recommending a book.
• Social Post creates a post about a book to share with your followers on Instagram or another site.
• Share the books you finished in a month — from the By Month view, tap the share button in the upper right of the month you want to share and you can share your monthly reads to Instagram or another site.

What about exporting my books? Can I save them somehow?

Yes — this is your data. You can export your TBR or Finished books to a .csv at any time. Just click on the More menu.

You can also export a nicely formatted book summary as a PDF. The summary includes reading stats and cover images. You can select all books or just the books you've read this year.

Why isn't Nightstand free?

Nightstand is a woman-owned small business that is not backed by a large corporation. We charge a small subscription fee to cover our business costs and provide a simple, private, ad-free tool.

The app is available for a free trial. If you like it, please consider subscribing for $1.99/month, or save a few bucks and pay for a full year for just $12.99.

What happens to my books if I cancel my subscription?

If you cancel your monthly or annual subscription, the app will become read-only at the end of the payment period. You will still have access to the Nightstand app and you can see all of the books you added to your TBR or Finished shelf, you can still sort and search your books, and you can always export your books.

To add new books, edit book info, add reviews and ratings, share books, or import books, please re-subscribe.

Does Nightstand recommend books for me to read next?

No, Nightstand is a tracking tool for your TBR and finished books.

For book recommendations and conversation I'd love to chat on Instagram — follow @Nightstand_App on Instagram.

Other questions or need help?

For help with app features, trouble finding a book, or other questions, please reach out to help@nightstand-app.com.