Readwise, known for its reading companion tools and highlight tracking, has unveiled its latest product: an all-in-one books app that aims to rival Amazon’s Kindle ecosystem and Goodreads. Unlike its predecessors, this new app—Readwise Books—combines ebook purchasing, reading, and robust tracking in a single platform.
What’s inside Readwise Books
The app lets users buy from “millions” of ebooks from major and indie publishers in the U.S., complemented by print editions (via Bookshop.org’s fulfillment) and select audiobooks. Past just buying and reading, it deeply tracks reading behavior—not merely completion or date read, but metrics like pace, immersion, total words consumed, and reading sessions.
To help bridge offline and online reading, Readwise Books supports tracking via Kindle’s Cloud Reader in browsers, snap-a-photo progress for physical books, and uploading of any DRM-free EPUB files. It also includes text-to-speech capability. AI features are planned: session summaries, lookups for definitions/translations, and location-aware question prompts about what you’re reading. (Only HarperCollins has signed on so far.)
Building a community and open tech foundation
Rather than sell its own e-reader hardware, Readwise is focusing on building a community and ecosystem. Users can share progress, track outside of Readwise’s ecosystem, use a public API, and even host an MCP (machine-computing protocol) server so AI agents can make recommendations, build reading pages, or integrate with custom tools including hackable readers.
The app is free to start; some of the AI capabilities will require a subscription. Previously, Readwise’s tools—highlighting and reading companion apps—were priced individually at around $7.99/month, or $9.99/month bundled. Readwise Books is currently in beta and invite-only unless you already subscribe.
This launch arrives amid a surge of new reading, tracking, and discovery apps promising richer organization and social features—new competition on hundreds of fronts. Amazon’s Kindle, including its subscription branch Kindle+ (formerly Unlimited), still dominates ebook sales, with about an 83% market share when those are included.
Final Analysis: Readwise Books isn’t just another reading tracker—it’s a move toward challenging Amazon’s grip on digital reading by integrating ebook sales, sophisticated reading analytics, and community tools into one platform. It offers compelling advantages for users who want both data and flexibility—but it faces heavy uphill competition. The success will hinge on whether it can secure enough publishing partnerships (beyond HarperCollins), deliver AI tools that go beyond novelty, and expand globally. If it pulls that off, Readwise could reshape how people read, share, and engage with books.
