Ask IH: Lauched, but getting no interest. Pivot or close?
Hello indies,
I built https://booxia.com , a platform for book authors to validate their book ideas before writing the entire book. But, I also made the mistake of imagining this is a pain to be solved, instead of talking to authors initially.
After contacting 20 authors to ask about their publishing pains and mentioning the project just briefly (1 line), I got just one reply. I'm not sure if book authors is a wrong market to target and what to do next.
Possible alternatives:
Option A: Keep reaching out to authors to find about real pains. Most are solved by existing tools though, including publishers. The need that will always be present would be to get a larger audience, but I can't solve that.
Option B: Turn Booxia into a platform for selling ebooks. But, Gumroad and Amazon already do the job. Can't see a specific advantage I could provide.
Option C: Stop this project and look for real business pains. This is my preferred choice.
What would you suggest?
Appreciate your advice!
I am in this market. I think you are giving up too soon. 20 cold emails is nothing. I agree with Paul -- send about 100 cold emails with followups and post on author forums and subreddits at least. kboards.com, /r/selfpublish, and 20BookTo50K on FB are good starting points. The way you approach authors also matters; don't mention your company, IMO, especially on the forums. Authors are generally skeptical of new services because there are many scams. Pose as a researcher or an author looking for advice on how to validate his book before investing in it. You will win either way: either you will realize the idea sucks and learn about other painpoints or you will get validation and assurance that your hardwork hasn't gone waste.
Thanks for your feedback!
A 5% response rate to your 20 emails is quite good. Try reaching out to 200.
https://blog.gettamboo.com/the-epic-guide-to-bootstrapping-a-saas-startup-from-scratch-by-yourself-part-1-4d834e1df8c1
Thanks for that article, Paul!
Marius..
To an ARTIST/WRITER - validation means - their work cannot stand on its own merits...did Warhol need validation ?
Stephen King ,Gogan ,Asimov ,Manet....Hemmingway....Monet ? No....why…? because they didn't give a crap about other peoples opinons ...they were artist and had their own vision .
create a landing page to validate the soundness of a concept .
That concept saves lots of time for developers , because if concept A gets 2,500 interested parties at 5.00 each per month then the
MRR - monthly recurring revenue stream - is 12, 500 dollars..and is worthy of the developers time & energy in its creation.
If concept B ..gets 10 people interested , compared to 2,500 for concept A..concept A gets built .
However , sometimes this is exactly the wrong approach , some customers NEED to see a DEMO..they need to how EXACTLY you are going to help them reach their artistic dreams …
Which is to sell Books
This does not require months of work & thousands of dollars to accomplish .
So I created a website concept for you as an example...its called BOOK RIDE
Its a Digital book tour , where Your CUSTOMERS ( writers) , Customers ( book readers ) take a digital tour of books that your site offers for sale using this open source script...if a book sells..the writer gets a check & you get a sales commission
https://threejs.org/examples/?q=roll#webvr_rollercoaster
The script is a rollercoaster ride through a digital amusement park...the trees , some clouds etc would be Book cover BILLBOARDS ( clickable links ) as the rider takes the tour...if the rider sees something of interest then they can click on a book and read a few pages...if they like it they can add it to the shopping cart..then click again and resume the tour...at the end of the tour they arrive at the checkout counter....you could also monetize this by having affiliate links of different types of Books.
AND different types of rides on different pages . Sci fi would be one type of ride..Romance another...Text Books a different type of ride etc.https://threejs.org/examples/?q=terr#webgl_terrain_dynamic
You could also apply this concept to things like fashion , makeup ,
shoes , cars , Movies ...Does AMAZON have this ?
Or create user specific pages for other companies like Victoria's Secret to display their catalog in a unique way .
Whatever you do Marius...Dont quit...reinvent the concept .
P.S....If anyone is looking to create unique & innovative websites & Apps...I have several amazing concepts that need someone with coding skills to bring to life . ..60/40 split..you get 60 % of what ever we create .
There is still much that haven't been done with 3d on the web. I experimented with getting some elements I designed on blender on my website, just as an experiment, but got into other work before publishing those 3d elements to the site.
I like the ideas that you've listed and I'm interested in what other things you have in mind. I'm always into doing something interesting and experimental (and also work on getting it to market)
Hello Mazindy , If you interested send me an email & I will send you some descriptions & links and tell you what I have in mind
CeoSpaceweb@gmail.com
Wow E.J., fantastic reply!
You're right, most artists just want to create. They don't ask for opinions, or how a fiction work should evolve.
Excellent ideas with the experiences of discovering new works, other ways than just browsing lists.
Would you post in a new thread 2 concepts that you have in mind, and ask for partners? Many of us know how to code, but lack the business problems to solve.
Thank you EJ!
I would take a look at leanpub.com which does something very similar I think.
Try and find niches in their offering where customers want more and focus there.
Thanks Nicholas!
Adding to what @from_30_to_greatness said, try budding bloggers as well. Bloggers don't know if there is enough demand for the thing they are writing about. They already spend 100 or so $-s on WordPress etc. to get it going.
I sometimes think I want this but for articles. Like you submit just the title of an article and people vote on it and if you get enough upvotes you write it then when you publish it it gets sent to those people who upvoted .
Can't this be done with a simple Twitter poll?
When you say 'validate their book ideas' do you mean tell people about their book and then have people say if they think its a good idea?
...and then you have Option A, which is to continue reaching out to authors to find out about their 'real pains'. What do you mean by 'real pains'.
Do you mean tell people about their book and then have people say if they think its a good idea -- yes, by answering questions asked by the author, and pre-ordering it.
What do you mean by 'real pains' -- authors aren't interested in validating their book ideas through this project. Maybe they have other needs that they would pay to be solved.
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Right Sandie, that's the issue, as with any marketplace. Now authors would have to share the book URL that we provide to their own network (Fb, website, blog...) since there's no other audience we could provide, but this also means they can ask for feedback the same way, eg as comments in a FB group, and even a link to paypal.me for pre-orders. There's no real value that an author gets now from the service.