Sobuu Reports: September 2026

September has been an important month for Sobuu. After a long period of planning and building, we finally released version 1.5.0, bringing shelves to the app. We call them shelves because they give readers a place to collect books around an idea, a mood, or a future reading plan.

Anyone can create a shelf and choose whether it should be public or private. That makes it possible to keep a personal list for yourself, or share recommendations and discoveries with other readers. Shelves have been one of the features I’ve most wanted to add, and seeing them become part of Sobuu feels like a real milestone.

With shelves in place, Sobuu now has the essentials I wanted it to offer: a comfortable way to keep track of reading, discover books, and organise what you want to read. The app is ready for more people to use, while there is still plenty I hope to improve. I’ll keep adding features over the coming months, one thoughtful step at a time.

The September release

The main release this month was version 1.5.0. Shelves were its centrepiece, alongside improvements to book search and a collection of other additions and refinements across the app.

Search now does more to help readers find something interesting, while the new shelves give those discoveries somewhere to go. Together, these changes make it easier to move from looking for a book to keeping it in a list you can return to. You can read the full announcement in the 1.5.0 release post.

What’s in the pipeline?

For October, I plan to keep changes to the app fairly small and spend more time helping people discover Sobuu. A useful app can only reach readers if they know it exists, so I want to put more care into making Sobuu visible and explaining what it offers.

I also plan to release Sobuu in the Apple App Store in October, and I may bring it to other stores too. Making the app available in more places is another way to help readers find it and use it on the devices they already have.

I’m also considering an optional way for people to support the project financially. At the moment, I can keep Sobuu going as its main investor, but moving faster is difficult with the resources I have. Contributions from readers who actively use and value the app could help make more work possible.

This is still an idea I’m thinking through, not a decision or a launch announcement. If it becomes something I move forward with, I’ll share the details in a future post. Any support option would be optional; Sobuu’s purpose and its core experience remain focused on readers.

The numbers

We reached 300 registered users this month! 🥳🥳

We started September with 271 registered readers, so seeing the community grow past that milestone has made me extremely happy. Thank you to everyone who has joined and helped Sobuu grow.

Registered accounts are only one part of the picture. Around 15 users were active during September*, using the app to update their reading progress. I would love for every registered reader to come back, and the new features might give some people a reason to do that. Still, I don’t want to send repeated emails to people who signed up a while ago just to remind them that Sobuu exists or tell them how nice the app is. I don’t enjoy receiving those messages myself, and I want Sobuu’s approach to privacy and communication to reflect that.

These figures also don’t tell us how many guests use the app or how many of them were active. People can use Sobuu without an account, and I’m happy for that to remain possible. The numbers give us one useful view of the community, but they don’t describe every reader who finds a place for Sobuu in their reading life.

* A monthly active user is a registered user who updated their reading progress at least once during the month.