I turned empty books into a real business — here's how

A few months ago, I had a dumb idea: what if you could buy a beautiful hardcover book with a clever, witty title on the cover… and absolutely nothing inside?

I'm René, based in the Netherlands. I've spent a decade in global business, but Empty Book Club started at a dinner table when I joked about writing a book for a friend called “Everything [Name] Knows About Cooking.” People loved it. So I built it.

What it is:

• Premium hardcover books, €19.95 each

• Three product lines: personalized AI-generated roast books (you pick the person's traits, and we generate the cover), pre-designed classics with universal humor, and corporate editions for team onboarding/events

• The pages are intentionally blank — that's the joke

Tech stack:

• Frontend: Lovable (React + Vite)

• Commerce: Shopify on a subdomain (shop.emptybookclub.com)

• Backend: Supabase

• AI cover generation for the personalized line

• Self-funded, solo founder

Where I am now:

• Live since mid-February 2026

• Getting positive reactions from everyone who sees it, but converting strangers is the real challenge. Corporates are picking it up!

• LinkedIn has been my main channel so far

• Just finished a full SEO + LLM visibility overhaul (sitemap, structured data, llms.txt, the works)

What I'm figuring out:

• Which channel actually converts for a novelty physical product

• Whether corporate is the real money-maker (early signals say yes)

• How to make the concept click in 5 seconds for people who haven't seen it

Would love feedback from this community. What would you do differently? Anyone else selling physical products as an indie maker?

www.emptybookclub.com