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10 Comments

Personalized nonfiction kid's books - roast it!

Hi y'all! I'd love to hear...

  • is the product/site clear?
  • how would you promote it?
  • what would you change/add/remove?

Drop your own project in the comments for mutual feedback, love that!

T

submitted this link to Icon for group Landing Page Feedback
Landing Page Feedback
on July 18, 2023
  1. 2

    Are you doing AI image generation to create kids' portraits in the style of famous artists?

    I'm just gonna paste a few other solutions that seem to be in the same niche, it's good to answer to yourself, how is your thing better and stands out (apparently, the portrait is a big thing, but is there anything else?):

    1. Put Me In The Story | Personalized Childrens Books - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/h/putmeinthestory
    2. NAMEE - Personalized story books for children - https://namee.com/
    3. Personalized Books for Kids | Barnes & Noble® - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/personalized-books-for-kids/_/N-2rku
    4. Personalized Kids Books - Etsy - https://www.etsy.com/market/personalized_kids_books
    5. Amazon.com: Personalized Child Book - https://www.amazon.com/personalized-child-book/s?k=personalized+child+book

    I created the list using my own app that I'm working on, for finding the competitors in the niche.

    1. 1

      Yes!! That's a great hot take. Thanks.

      Great list. None of them do lifelike images of the kid.

      And they're all fiction, I'm nonfiction.

      So yeah, I'm not sure those are my competition. Maybe this book is: https://www.phaidon.com/phaidon-kids/ages-3-5/my-art-book-of-happiness-9781838660826/
      Or maybe my competition is photobooks. I really don't know!

  2. 1

    I glanced at the site - cool idea.

    My thoughts:

    Make it easier to buy and therefore sell.

    Go to where the shoppers are....marketplaces exist and have the target buyers i.e. Mums, aunts, grandparents etc.

    I'd research design themes on Etsy and places like Not on The High street. The art history element is nice but perhaps non child appealing. Perhaps go for some cartoon styles and more popular themes i.e. animals. In reality you are going for 'cute' appeal here.

    Even though your offer is a SaaS you could list the book as an Etsy 'product' you simply use your own software to complete the order.

    Ramp up multiple products - each listing with a different art style.

    Assuming you are using print on demand service - increase products to include fridge magnets, coasters etc.

    Use humor to expand the buyer needs - i.e. 'funny' art you can use for Father's day etc.

    Provide specific themes i.e. calls to action - reasons to buy: 'memory - last day at nursery', 'first day of school', X birthday etc.

    1. 1

      i would love to ramp up more products, but i'm trying not to spread myself too thin. feels like I need more marketing first, then more team, then more catalogue. ask me tomorrow and you'll get a different answer 😂

      do you know of etsy stores that do fulfillment off-site? i've been thinking about that too

      1. 1

        I guess my point is that you don't need more 'products' in a real sense. You only need to show more examples of how your service can be used and these are listed as as individual products (but as far as you are concerned are all the same). I don't think Etsy is a fulfillment business - only a marketplace. So everything is fulfilled by the seller direct or by a print on demand supplier

        1. 1

          ah I think I get you... like "shop art education" / "shop screen-free entertainment" / "shop lifelike personalization" / etc. Makes sense

          Re Etsy, the issue is that they just don't seem to support API backends for fulfillment. I don't do manual handling for each customer... etsy sorta assumes there's manual handling, afaict

  3. 1

    At the start I thought this was only for the cover of a book, but as I scroll I realized it's the whole book, is there a way where you can show the inside of the book without scrolling?

    1. 1

      Thanks heaps, this is awesome feedback.

      Before I go into my own thoughts on this, could you elaborate on how you'd see that happening above the fold?

      Thanks so much!!

  4. 1

    i've seen a lot of these websites now and i think this is one of the cleanest.

    the product site is clear but i don't fully understand the market. i dont think you should be focusing on the generative design. i think you should still be focused on what traditional book subscription models did in the 90s and 00s. when i was a kid the i think the biggest reason my parents read to me was for educational purposes. so educational kids books probably have a bigger market than customized kids books.

    i think that these books would do great as gifts. you could capture shared memories as books. like capturing a wedding day into a book that i can one day share with my kids or even just send as a gift to family members.

    if you do shared memories you could probably offer a bulk discount.

    side note: i cant wait to see hundreds of these litter thriftstore shelves in the upcoming decades. 🙃

    im building a SaaS service. a low code integration platform for developers. websites these days connect with tons of other services and having to learn all of them can be a drag. we provide one consistent interface with type safety.

    i cant post links and our SEO is absolute garbage since were in the validation phase but were called worksheets dev which is also our url just replace the space.

    1. 1

      Thanks so much for your feedback.

      I took a look at worksheets dot dev. Here's my hot take...

      • it looks like "yes-code zapier" (instead of no-code)
      • i'd like to see one cta button heavier than the other, so it's clear what i should do
      • i would make the screencap look more like it was made with Screen Studio

      I find it a bit hard to see what it does (full disclosure, i am a noob coder myself) but the USP of having properly typed integrations with other stuff instead of janky axios requests sounds awesome.

      ps... I know grownups who still have their personalized kids books from 40 years ago... but yes I hear you about thrift stores 😂

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