Sharing my web app for books (MVP)
Books on the web suck.
I've always been a fairly avid reader, but have felt that online platforms nowadays like goodreads and Amazon don't really do justice to all the knowledge and beauty books provide. Ugly UI, emphasis on user activity rather the books themselves, and a fragmented journey from selection to actual reading.
When I started learning some web development skills, this seemed like a good problem to tackle. I've haven't implemented most of the features I'm envisioning, and it's still very rough (especially the UX), but the minimum viable functionality is there.
Check it out and let me know what you think, good or bad: https://readmythos.com/
this is super interesting.
your first sentence: "Books on the web suck."
i agree. big time.
i've written two books and plan to publish a third soon—but i am totally unexcited about print copies. i don't know how to get it out there on the web in a way that makes sense.
when i read that sentence, i thought: what if there was a super simple service that i could upload a markdown manuscript and have it spit out a beautifully typeset book, available on their platform, maybe even for a price—i.e., a substack for books?
is this an idea you've thought about?
please do reach out to me if you want to talk more about publishing, or if you want some free UI/UX assistance.
that sounds like a great idea. so far I've been thinking/working on the overall book browsing/tracking interface.
but I'm also very interested in the actual reading experience and how books should ideally work on the web. i've begun working on this in earnest recently, and am considering how formatting (on the frontend) and uploading/storage (on the backend) will all work.
i'll send you a message and we can talk more about this