Bookshop.org vs Stan Taylor
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bookshop.org
Read millions of ebooks and support independent bookstores with every purchase. This app offers a customizable reader, extensive browsing, and tools to organize your reading list and notes.
- Customizable ebook reader
- Browse millions of titles
- Organize TBR into custom shelves
- Highlight in five colors
- Add notes to highlights
- Save titles to wishlist
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Bookshop.org’s mission is simple: We help local, independent bookstores thrive by giving more than 80% of our profits back to our network of 3,000+ stores. In our app, you can read millions of ebooks - and every purchase supports an independent bookstore near you! In the Bookshop app you can: - Read your ebooks in our customizable ebook reader. - Browse millions of titles and discover your next favorite read in romance, thrillers, mystery, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and more. - Organize your TBR into custom shelves. - Highlight in five different colors, and add notes to your highlighted passages. - Sort & filter highlights and notes by date created, book order, and more. - Save titles to your wishlist so you can read them later. - Shop knowing that over 80% of the profit goes directly to local, independent bookstores. We’re a Certified B Corp, and we’ve raised more than $50 million for independent bookstores nationwide since 2020. Download the Bookshop.org app to support bookstores, not billionaires.
Stan Taylor
Access and engage with author Stan Taylor's books, including "The Black Book of Power" and "The Little Dictator." Read, listen to audiobooks, and interact with exclusive content and a private community. Offline access and multi-language support are available.
- Read books with customizable typography
- Listen to full audiobooks with playback controls
- Sync highlights, notes, and bookmarks across devices
- Offline access to downloaded content
- Multi-language support for books and journals
- Private community forum and messaging
- Create shareable content from quotes
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The official app for Stan Taylor's books, The Black Book of Power and The Little Dictator. The opening chapters of both are free to read and to hear. If you own the books, your full library unlocks the moment you sign in. BUILT FOR THE WORK These books ask you to dismantle a self you have been running for decades, and that deserves better than a reader that forgets where you were. The typography is tuned for hours of work, with 5 typefaces including 2 designed for dyslexic readers, adjustable size, pages or scroll, and a dark interface with a light mode when you want it. THE COMPLETE AUDIOBOOKS Every chapter narrated. It plays in the background with lock screen controls, speed control, a sleep timer, and a full chapter list. Tap the headphones inside the reader and the narration follows the chapter you are on, so you can move between the page and the voice by chapter. BOOKMARKS & HIGHLIGHTS Press and hold a passage, drag to where it ends, and add a note when the thought deserves one. Every highlight, note, and bookmark is private to your account and synced to every device you sign in on. Arrange the shelf by hand. YOURS, OFFLINE Download the books and every hour of audio to your device. Use it in Airplane Mode. IN YOUR LANGUAGE The books and the companion journals are in thirteen languages. Open Extras, then Translations, and add an edition to your shelf: its opening chapters are free to read, and the rest comes with the book you already own. THE FEED Stan's posts, open to everyone, with no algorithm deciding whether you see them. Behind them, a members-only community for adults who read the books: posts, comments, reactions and private messages, every post screened before it appears. No ads, no strangers. On your first visit you choose how you appear, the real name from your order or a pen name made on the spot, and you can switch post by post. THE ESSAYS Stan's essays, in the app and on the web, set in the reader's own typography, with audio where it exists. Some are kept for readers with a book. THE FORGE Turn the line that rewired you into a wallpaper for your lock screen or a card worth posting. THE EXTRAS The printable companion journals, the FAQ and the wallpapers live beside the books. HOW ACCESS WORKS This app sells nothing. It is a reader for books you already own. Sign in with the email you used at checkout and your shelf fills itself. PRIVATE BY PRINCIPLE It carries no ads, tracks nothing, runs no analytics, and sends no push notifications. There are no streaks and nothing engineered to pull you back in. You open it because you decided to do the work, and it gets out of the way while you do. To your power and freedom, Stan Taylor
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Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Stan Taylor at 100% against Bookshop.org's 57%. Stan Taylor also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.8). Bookshop.org's advantage is ratings volume (2.3K vs 7) and chart position (#188 vs unranked). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Stan Taylor holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bookshop.org has 2.3K ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 57% of Bookshop.org's written reviews are positive against 100% of Stan Taylor's.
Bookshop.org ships an update every 5 days, Stan Taylor every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bookshop.org | Stan Taylor |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (2.3K ratings) | 5.0 (7 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 56.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2.3K — better | 7 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #188 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 111 MB | 76 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Bookshop, Inc. | Hashtag Publishing LLC |
Customer experience
Bookshop.org
Stan Taylor
Bugs and requests
Bookshop.org
Reported bugs
4 issues- Inability to remember last page read
- Scrolling issues and unexpected page skipping
- Formatting problems (stripped italics, weird paragraph spacing)
- Settings not persisting between app sessions
Requested features
7 requests- More font and theme options
- Ability to adjust line spacing, margins, and other formatting
- Implement highlighting, annotation, and note-taking features
- Add search functionality
- Improve page turning and navigation
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- Provide better dark mode/night reading experience
- Sync reading progress across devices
Stan Taylor
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Bookshop.org
No in-app purchases
Stan Taylor
No in-app purchases









