Importing Book Metadata (Non Goodreads)

Getting started
1

Hello,

I have a JSON file with all my read-book data. metadata-library/read.json

I would love to import the ISBN & started/finished dates into Micro.Blog.

Is there a certain way I can format the data for an import?

2

The import feature expects a CSV file in the format that Goodreads outputs. For reference, here are the headers and one book from my export.

Book Id,Title,Author,Author l-f,Additional Authors,ISBN,ISBN13,My Rating,Average Rating,Publisher,Binding,Number of Pages,Year Published,Original Publication Year,Date Read,Date Added,Bookshelves,Bookshelves with positions,Exclusive Shelf,My Review,Spoiler,Private Notes,Read Count,Owned Copies
16690,The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,Robert A. Heinlein,"Heinlein, Robert A.",,"=""0340837942""","=""9780340837948""",0,4.16,Hodder & Stoughton,Paperback,288,2005,1966,,2023/08/21,to-read,to-read (#184),to-read,,,,0,0

I think the following columns are the ones Micro.blog cares about.

Title, Author, Date Read, ISBN13 (or ISBN or Book Id), Bookshelves (or Shelf)
3

Wicked, thank you. I’ll take a look at grabbing the data that I need out of my JSON file to have a go at importing!

4

Using duckdb…

copy(select title as Title, (authors->>[0])[1] as Author, ISBN, dateFinished as "Date Read", status as Shelf from read_json_auto('~/Downloads/read.json')) to '~/Downloads/flamed_read.csv' (HEADER, DELIMITER ',');

worked for me.

5

Thank you! This worked for me.

Now to understand what to do with all the book data now that it’s in micro.blog.

6

Do they import into a bookshelf or a blog post or page? I would like to find ways to import my listening/reading from non-goodreads places too and what happens after the import.

7

They import to a bookshelf, you define the bookshelf as the last option in the CSV format provided above.