FAQs
How do I register?
Just use the box on the home page - all you need is your email address! Or, if you start typing the name or author of a book you like on the home page then click on the orange link which matches it best, at the bottom of the results page there's a box where you can register and your original book will be the first one on your new list.
What's new at WSIRN?
We add new features to the site every few months and have lots more plans in the pipeline! You can keep up-to-date with what's going on via our Twitter feed and Facebook page, or by signing up at the site and joining our mailing list.
How does WSIRN work?
WSIRN produces recommendations based purely on collective taste: when books are entered into the same favorites list, they become associated with each other. The more often particular items appear on different lists, the stronger that association becomes. Purely and simply, WSIRN represents mass opinion about books. For the technically minded, this is a collaborative filtering system, using our own bespoke algorithm called 'Incidence Bias Weighting' and partly using association rules.
How should I use it?
If you simply want a quick recommendation, you only need to enter one book; click on the best match in the list that appears as you type and you will get some recommendations. The best thing to do, though, is enter a list of favorites. This will give you more focused recommendations, as well as helping to build the database and share your taste with other users of the site. If you enter your email address, your list of favorites will be remembered next time you visit, so you can then add new titles, create more lists, and get even more appropriate recommendations.
Why would I want to create booklists?
Aside from the warm, fuzzy feeling of contributing to the community, there are lots of ways you can use lists, now that we've added the multiple list feature: you can keep track of books you've read and liked, or have a wish list of things you want to read, or even a list of books you hated. You could also build lists of what you think are the 'top 10 psychological thrillers' or whatever and use the new share feature (under each list) to let other people see it. You will also get more personalised recommendations if you select multiple books in your list before hitting the 'What Should I read next?' button.
Why aren't other books by the author I searched for in the results?
We filter these out because it seems obvious that you'd be interested in the other books by that author. You can always enter their name in the search box to see which of their books are in our database. The database is updated every day, so come back soon if you don't see them all!
I'm an author or publisher - how do I get my books listed on your site?
At the moment anyone can add books by ISBN number - our system can usually then fetch the info. But if you want your book/s to be found in recommendations, they need to be in users' book lists - you can kick-start the process by building lists of similar titles to your own (including your own, of course). We are working on developing tools to help authors and publishers more directly.
I'm getting some weird results...
No recommendation algorithm is perfect, but we're constantly tidying the database to improve things - sometimes there are entries which are spelled wrongly from the original source database. The occasional wacky suggestion is usually down to the search book not appearing in many users' lists. But the results improve all the time, so do come back and try again!
What if I can't find the book I'm looking for?
Most of the time the database will identify your book by title/author straight away (you will see a list of close matches, with the most likely one at the top). Now and again it may not come up with what you're looking for immediately. If so, try checking you've spelt them correctly - also, try just entering the author's surname or a keyword from the book title. If that still doesn't work, you can enter the ISBN number from the book's bar code. We can then look that up elsewhere. If you're really stuck, get in touch with us via the links below and we'll try to help you out as soon as we can.
Why are there different versions of the same book that are shown when I start searching?
We're doing our best to iron these out - it's a problem that all the big book sites face. Some other sites like to have as many different editions as possible - but we think focusing on the 'work' is more important for providing meaningful recommendations. We are gradually removing cases where multiple editions confuse matters.
What happens if I enter my email address? Will I be spammed? What's your privacy policy?
Entering your email, as explained above, simply means you can come back and add new favorites to your previous list - to do so you need to agree to us storing your email address (this is to meet EU GDPR laws). It also means we can see how people use the site to observe general patterns in our data. When you register you will also receive an email - ONLY if you click the confirmation link from that will you be on our contactable mailing list. If you don't click that confirmation link, we will store your email address but ONLY use it to contact you if you contact us first OR to warn you of a security breach at the site. We absolutely do NOT share email addresses with any third party, and we never will. We treat all use of the site in the strictest confidence. We reserve the right to email registered and confirmed users about major updates at the site, but this is something we do very rarely - so far we've done it about once a year! We don't use cookies - although we do use Google Analytics, which uses cookies but does not collect personal information about you. Advertising partners and other third parties may also use cookies, scripts and/or web beacons to track visitors to our site in order to display advertisements and other useful information. Such tracking is done directly by the third parties through their own servers and is subject to their own privacy policies. We don't store any personal information about you other than your email address. We monitor IP addresses for security purposes but encrypt them so we can never identify individuals from them.
How do I delete my account?
You can delete your account, all your book lists, and unsubscribe from the newsletter on your account settings page here. The option can be found at the bottom of the page under "Delete Account". Note: this action is unreversible.