Updates
Happy 1 year of Tome!
Jan 13, 2026
What a wild journey for Tome this year has been! Tome, the book blogging social network for readers, launched in 2025 and became the #1 book app with 100,000 downloads on day 1, with 300,000 visits to tomebooks.com. As the year progressed, we launched Tome Tokens and an entire badge system to compliment Tome’s customizable profiles, a crowsourced book database and book tracking system, and built our entire Android app while launching in five additional countries. A big first year!
Along the way, we’ve accumulated lots of Tome lore, and a bit of chaos as we’ve made our fair share of mistakes and learned from them. If you haven’t been on Tome in a minute, definitely check back in as we’ve added a ton of new stuff!
As celebrate the Tome Gnome’s 1 year birthday, here’s a recap of all the updates from your favorite book blogging platform:
January
Not only did we become the #1 book app in North America, we also peaked at #6 on the OVERALL appstore charts.
We were overwhelmed with the support and enthusiasm for Tome on launch day, and our servers were too. Apple sent out the preorder downloads exactly at noon, and so we had everyone attempting to login at the same moment. We spent the first several hours after the launch frantically improving server capacity to handle the influx.
We built a Tiktok Syncer to get your followers from tiktok and automatically follow them on Tome. It was an exciting time as the tiktok ban briefly went into effect and everyone was looking for another place to get book recommendations.
February
In February, we introduced the first versions of Tome’s Hot feed, to better show the top content from around the app, rather than only a global new feed which was ordered chronologically.
The infamous teapot 💀 The first version of Tome’s hot feed didn't have a strong enough decay factor, so this post got stuck to the top of the feed as everyone commented on it, compounding and keeping it stuck to the top. Ultimately it became a Tome meme (like this post).
Our first ever profile contest! We run profile contests each month as a fun way to refresh your profile and earn a special badge plus a bookshop.org gift certificate.
Other Product Updates:
2.0.5: Blocked tags, blocked users from feed & comments
2.0.6: Algorithm for Hot feed ranking
2.0.7: Pull to refresh on main feed to rerank to chronological feed
2.0.8: Editing posts: add/remove tags, move collections, fix typos, change attachments
2.0.9: Feed tabs, notification bells, read all notifications
2.1.0: Reordering collections, new tagging for spoilers, removing seen posts from the hot feed
March
We launched Tome Keepers and were overwhelmed by the positive feedback! After launching our $10/month Tome Keeper subscription, within 24 hours we had 400 people sign up. Tome Keeper’s launch marked our first step in defining a new business model for social networks, one that will support the company ethically and sustainably for the long term. Tome will never sell advertising or collect your data, and aligning the incentives of the platform with our users is a top priority.
We had a fun countdown and word puzzle that everyone was trying to solve for first access to become a Tome Keeper.
Becoming a Tome Keeper gave a special pink diamond and swoosh on your profile!
Other Product Updates:
2.2: New book database! Better selection than Google Books, better quality for book cover images.
Pinning posts. Pin a personal intro, music, track your current read, use a pinned post as your link-in-bio, and more.
2.2.1: Comment threading fixes to support comment sections with 100s of comments
2.3: Tome Keeper subscription launch
2.3.3: Improved GIF picker to Tenor from GIPHY
April
In April, we focused on improving the core Tome functionality, and laying the groundwork for more profile customization with the upcoming badge system.
On the community side, we saw the creation of several Tome bookclubs, as well as ‘Feral Friday’, which meant posting a lot of pickle related content, or cow related content.
Other Product Updates:
2.3.4: Announcements at the top of the feed to welcome new users and tell them what’s new.
2.4: Custom reactions. Allow users to react with an expanded set of emojis, giving more personalization surfaces. Also gives Tome Keeper exclusive reactions.
2.5: Follow tags. This helps us grow into other niches in addition to fantasy books, and helps users curate a feed tailored to their interests.
2.6: Badge Submission and new referral badges for people who refer their friends
May
Tome launched its badge marketplace and Tome Token! We embarked on a journey to let y'all have more power over customizing the app, and this starts with badge submissions!
There's a new marketplace chest in the top right of the feed.
To unlock badges, you'll use Tome Tokens, which Tome Keepers get an allowance of 1,400 per month. It’s also possible to buy Tome Tokens in smaller denominations in the marketplace page.
Badge creators will get a share of the tokens used to unlock their badges, so you'll be rewarded for your creations!
We also launched post awards! The post awards on Tome are based on denominations of bread: from a single roll, worth 10 Tome Tokens, all the way to the mystical ‘Cosmic Baguette’ worth 10,000 Tome Tokens. Within the first week we had our first cosmic baguette get awarded!
We had some chaos with guessing of the code for early access to the badge and token system. If you guessed GNOMEBBL instead of GIVEMETHATBOOTY we gave you an easter egg (seen here).
It’s really fun to see all the submitted badges and how they customize people’s profiles!
June
We launched our Android waitlist! Due to incredible demand, we pushed up the development of Android and started accepting Android beta testers in June. We also had one of our most viewed Tiktoks ever, with 1.4 million views.
The Tome Book Crawl. We put together an in-real-life Tome badge claim scavenger hunt at 6 participating bookstores here in NYC. At each location there was a QR code to scan to earn a unique badge, much like ‘Pokemon Go for bookstores’. See the whole journey here!
Other Product Updates:
2.11: Author badge, authors on Tome now have a special banner to authenticate them.
2.12: New appstore images, copy, and branching out beyond fantasy in our messaging.
2.13: Updated onboarding with default book tracking collections; flow to claim badges IRL; default to the following feed instead of the hot feed
2.14: the best reading tracker that you'll ever use!! Get started by creating a new post, and tapping 'Add Book', and select your collection to make your first book. Each book has all your posts inside it: post quotes, vibes, thoughts as you read. It'll all be collected together.
July
Android went live!! Finally we could welcome our Android tomies to Tome on the playstore.
Tome Tarot
We finished android development 2 weeks ahead of schedule, which gave time to build and launch Tome Tarot. A fun experience to scan your bookshelf and get a tarot card reading, we saw thousands of people share their results to Instagram and Tiktok.
Tome Tarot is an enchanted personality quiz for your bookshelf! Simply upload a photo of your shelf (TBR stack, screenshot of your Kindle library, latest book haul, etc) and hit the “Get your Reading” button. Wait for a moment while the oracle shuffles your cards, and receive a reading for your reading!
It was really fun seeing all the photos of your bookshelves and the results of their vibes! We also added 100+ handpicked aura objects to complement your Tarot reading. Give it another go and let us know what you get: https://www.tometarot.com/
August
In August, we launched Tome in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, trending in the top 200 apps in the books category in each of those countries.
Books on Profile: we aggregated all your books into one page on your profile, making it easier to blog as you read (a core differentiator compared to Goodreads). You'll see a new home for all the posts you make about a book! We want Tome to be your place for book discussions, not just the final rating when you finish. In that light, we're making moves to consolidate all your thoughts about a book into one easy place on your profile. Plus, it looks really fun to scroll through when you customize your profile!
Mentions: users can now tag each other in posts & comments, sending push notifications to bring them back into the app.
September
In September we launched book tracking on Tome. Now every time you update your page number, update a book to finished, or mark something as To Be Read, you’ll make a post. All these posts live in the book on your profile, so you’ll have a journal of everything as you read.
Our tracker is ideal for those who love to make little notes in the margins of their books, who send reaction gifs to their book besties when they reach that chapter, and those who can’t stop telling everyone they bump into about the book they're reading. Those who become completely immersed in their reading.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, we also launched half stars, too.
How to track your reading using Tome with our new book tracking features:
Tag reading buddies on your reaction to a major plot twist
Share in-depth reviews with half stars!
Change a book’s status when you start, finish, or DNF!
Update your progress percent with page numbers!
Collect intriguing reviews to your TBR
Keep track of when you read each book with started and finished dates!
Other Product Updates:
2.26: Book counts & Book status filtering. Been wondering how many books you've finished? How many are in your 'To Be Read'? How many you've DNF'ed? Check it out, right on your profile and easily filter your book list by status. You can also adjust the start/end date and status of your books without making a post if you'd like to tidy things up.
2.27: Performance update, profiles should load much faster now! Same with collection images and profile photos, Tome just got a big speed boost.
We launched a Tome Tiktok bot, which takes mentions in Tiktok comments to automatically import book recommendations into your Tome reading lists. See how it works here!
October
Tome Communities launched! Communities are subreddit-like groups to find other people who enjoy the same books that you do. We are launching with 18 communities that all have volunteer mods, with some that are book genres and others, like Community Kitchen or Pets of Tome, representing broader affinity groups. These communities will power our marketing efforts, allowing us to reach more niche communities, and also grow while keeping content relevant for new users.
Join groups based on your interested to more easily find people who read the same genres as you do. There will also be interest groups to share non-book related posts! We'll look at your most recent reading to find the best groups, and for new users, you can upload a photo of your bookshelf to get your communities.
We're launching 18 initial communities: Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Romance, Horror, Romantasy, Sci-Fi, Non-Fiction, Monster Lovers, Romance, Lit RPG, Writing, Arts and Crafts, Pets, Memes, and Tome is Home.
You will also be able to request new communities! There's a button at the end of the communities list in the search page.
Reading Buddies!
Pin up to eight favorite Tome accounts to the top of your feed. Adding a Reading Buddy means you'll get a notification everytime they post. Never miss an update again!
This is excellent for keeping up with your best friend, your buddy read, or if you have a book club you’re part of, you can pin their account
You can also filter your feed by reading buddies too.
Book Pages!
You will be able to go to a book’s page, and filter posts for that book by new and hot, and by who made them!
you no longer need to make a post to track your book status, you can update your reading/TBR/finished status on the book page
book pages have summaries and a link to buy the book (shoutout indie authors and bookshop.org, our partner!)
New Search Page
search for books, communities, and people all in one spot.
have an easy spot to get to the book page of your currently reading.
November
A long requested feature, starting in November you'll be able to add new books to Tome's book database if you can't find the one you're looking for! To do so:
Tap the search in the upper right of the home page (you won't be able to add books when you're in the composer book search)
search for a book you're looking for -- if there are no results, there will be a button right there to add a book, otherwise, it'll be at the bottom of the search results
tap to add a new book! add a cover, title, author, and summary and it'll be published into Tome immediately for you to use to track your reading.
Ideally together we can make the Wikipedia of book databases, where everyone collaborates to make sure that all authors and works are represented!
Added an app tutorial with slides to help new users.
Group announcements: The top 3 announcements from your communities will now be pinned to the top of your feed! This is a great way to stay up to date with community events.
December
TAGS are back! Add tags to your posts to help other people find them. Follow tags to see more of the topics you like, and block tags to control what you don't want to see.
Other updates:
Drafts! If you leave the composer (whether or not you meant to), your draft will be saved there
A badge portal! Now you’ll be able to update and change your badges, instead of resubmitting them when you want to alter them
Mods will now be able to update their own community rules and banners
A huge update to the way polls work, making the Reading Buddies tab collapsible, adding flair for NSFW posts, and removing the counts on collections for a cleaner look!
What a first year of Tome! What were your favorite moments of Tome lore?
