Lesson 2 of 9 · Basics
Tracking progress and keeping your place: pages, percentages and photos
Why the number in your tracker is not the same as knowing where you stopped.
Best Book Tracker Apps editors · 26 August 2026 · 2 min read
Trackers record progress as a page number or a percentage, which is what your stats need. Your place is more than a number: it is where the story was when you stopped. Session notes, timers and place-keeping apps each help close that gap.
Contents
Pages or percentages?
Progress is how far you are through a book. Trackers record it in one of two units. Pages suit print books, because the number is printed on the page. Percentages suit ebooks, where the page count changes with text size. The StoryGraph accepts either, and Kobo now sends percentage progress to StoryGraph automatically for books in your Kobo account. Whichever unit you use, keep it for the whole book, so your progress history stays consistent.
Why is progress not the same as your place?
Progress is a number for your stats. Your place is where you actually stopped: the scene, who was in it and what had just happened. If you put a book down for a week, the page number tells you where to open it, but not what you need to remember when you do.
How do you pick a book back up?
- Update progress at the end of every session, with a one-line note on where you stopped.
- Use a session timer. Bookly and Basmo log time and pages for each sitting.
- Use a place-keeping app. Magic Bookmark syncs to your exact place in a print book from a photo of the page and shows who's who in the cast without revealing anything past your place. It does not log finished books or keep stats, so it works next to a tracker.