Readwise takes on Amazon’s Kindle and Goodreads with its new app for book lovers
- ID
- 42083
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 03 Nov 2026, 1:49 AM
- Fetched
- 03 Nov 2026, 4:38 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/02/readwise-takes-on-amazons-kindle-and-goodreads-with-its-new-app-for-book-lovers/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 2.5
- Created
- 03 Nov 2026, 4:39 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_foundersdevelopers
What happened
Readwise launched Readwise Books, a bootstrapped e-book store and tracking app it describes as a cross between Kindle and Goodreads. It offers millions of ebooks from the big five publishers and others, initially in the U.S., plus print books fulfilled by Bookshop.org's distributor and some audiobooks; it adds stats like words read, pace, depth, immersion, and sessions. Readwise is not selling e-readers, while Kindle+ holds 83% share when included in market stats.
Why it matters
Most local builders should not reprioritize for this. If you are building reading or productivity SaaS, the concrete lesson is that Readwise is using richer tracking data (words read, pace, immersion) plus a store as its wedge, but the U.S.-only store launch means Malaysian readers likely cannot use the buying side yet.
Discussion angle
Can richer reading analytics and cross-service highlights pull users away from Kindle's 83% store share, or does content commerce still require hardware and ecosystem lock-in?