BookFunnel

Review by eFreeware

BookFunnel is an Android app from BookFunnel.com. It is a shelf for the books you have claimed through the service, and it lets you open a title in whichever reading app you already prefer.

The reason to consider it is consolidation. If your author copies are scattered across download folders and email attachments, one searchable library that opens each book where you want it is a real convenience. The app has more than a million installs and a 4.2 average from 3,759 ratings, so it is not an experiment.

Getting books onto the shelf

The core of the app is the library, and you rarely have to do anything to fill it. Books you receive from a BookFunnel author are usually added on their own, so the shelf fills up as you claim titles. Anything that does not appear can be added by typing in the book's download code.

From there, the app is built around one gesture: tapping a cover opens the book straight away. The app concentrates on getting your file to the reading app you prefer. That choice matters, because it means BookFunnel does not have to be where you read; it can be the place your books live and the doorway to whatever you already use.

There is also help for moving a book to a different device entirely. The app provides instructions for that.

A reader and an audiobook player built in

If you would rather not leave the app, there is a reader. It covers the settings most people adjust first: font, text size, line spacing and margins. Nothing exotic, but those four controls are what decide whether a screen is comfortable for a long chapter.

The audiobook side is more interesting. The player includes bookmarks and a choice of download quality, and it lets you set playback speed, configure your own skip-back and skip-forward intervals, and set a sleep timer. Custom skip buttons are the detail I would single out: the fixed jumps in most players are either too short or too long, and being able to set your own is the kind of small thing that changes how a book feels to listen to.

Your place is kept. The app remembers where you stopped and reopens there. That is what makes switching between a phone and a tablet practical rather than an exercise in hunting for your spot.

What the app asks of you

BookFunnel is a manager for titles distributed through BookFunnel, so it is useful in proportion to how many of your books arrive that way. If you buy from a general store, this is not the shelf for those purchases.

For books that do not appear automatically, you can enter the download code. That is a small piece of admin.

On cost, there is nothing to weigh: the app is free, with no ads and no in-app purchases. The only thing you are spending is the time it takes to add a book that did not sync on its own.

How I would use it

The sensible setup is to treat BookFunnel as the hub and your usual reading app as the destination. Let the library fill itself as you claim books from authors, then tap a cover and send it where you actually read. You keep one place to look for everything without giving up the app you are comfortable in.

The built-in reader and audiobook player are worth trying for books you have not started yet, particularly if you listen as well as read. Setting your skip intervals and playback speed once, before you begin, saves fiddling with them mid-chapter.

The point of the sync is that you should not have to think about it.

Audiobook listeners should check download quality, since that setting is offered in the player and is the sort of thing better decided in advance than on the road.

A shelf for author copies, not a bookstore

BookFunnel does one job well: it keeps the books you get from authors in one searchable place and gets them open quickly, either in its own reader or in the app you already like. The audiobook player, with its adjustable speed, custom skip intervals and sleep timer, is more thoughtful than the rest of the package needs to be, and the cross-device sync removes the usual annoyance of losing your place.

It is free, with no ads or purchases to work around, which makes trying it a low-stakes decision. The catch is simply what it is for. This is a companion to the BookFunnel service, so it earns its space on your phone if a fair number of your books arrive that way; readers who mostly buy from stores will find little to put on the shelf.

If you claim advance copies, newsletter freebies and other author downloads regularly, install it and let the library build itself. If your reading comes from a store account, there is no reason to add another app.

What's new

Minor bug fixes and enhancements