Readlist
A community to share books you love
Checked my Amazon affiliate dashboard today and what's this??? Someone bought a book featured in one of the reading lists I created.
It was only $1.70, but it really put some wind in my sails today! I will continue to improve Readlist and work on creating great lists that are SEO friendly while also being super useful to readers.
Fellow Indie Hackers, if you love books like me and would like to share your knowledge (and possibly get paid!) -- head on over to Readlist.io and start creating =)
Thanks for your support.
-Daniel
Hey guys! My new site readlist.io is live and has almost 50 lists created! To thank everyone on Indie Hackers for your support and feedback, I've created an "Essential Reading List for Aspiring Indie Hackers" list with some suggestions for books that may help your journey.
I've seeded the list with 5 amazing books I think will really help you, but I'd also like this list to be a WIP together with you guys, so let me know what books I should add, and why, and I can feature you in the list.
Check it out here: https://readlist.io/dmathieu/essential-reading-list-for-aspiring-indie-hackers
I ended up spending a lot more time on Readlist than I had anticipated! Turns out working on something you love is super fun. The initial version is probably a bit too full-featured to be classified as a straight MVP, but it's what I was comfortable launching with. Check it out! www.readlist.io
I wanted to get back into coding and was thinking of what I love to do most. I love reading, I love recommending books, and I especially love making money recommending books! So I decided to make Readlist, a community for recommending books. Right now it's just a side project, but I can definitely envision it becoming more!
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Well, the idea is good but not new at all. How are you going to distinguish from existing services?
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Could you give some examples of existing services? The one that comes to mind is Goodreads, but AFAIK their book lists don't give affiliate revenue to the list creator. As far as other crowd-sourced book list sites, I haven't come across any others. Maybe haven't done enough research xD
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Recently launched was Collectoral.com , which has the books recommedations for the tech community by Hackernews & Product Hunt influencers.
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Collectoral.com is not accessible
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Creator of Collectoral.com here! Thanks @ASL001 for the mention and @thamizharasu for pointing out the DNS problem. Fixed it!
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Thanks for the recommendation. I looked at Collectoral and it seems to be another editor-curated site that gives affiliate revenue to the creator of the site. While I do think that's necessary a viable niche, I'm trying to build a platform to incentivize people to create their own lists and get affiliate revenue, rather than taking it all for myself~
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The first example is Amazon itself. I usually check stores because it's the first place where people write their recommendations and impressions. Another source is bloggers that I trust. I would rather trust someone who I know, at least by their publications.
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Totally! Amazon definitely has more reviews than we ever will. The angle I'm going with Readlist is for influencers who want to share books they like, but that don't necessarily have a website or blog where they share their recommendations. If you're familiar with Kit.com, they are doing a similar thing but for video equipment. (Yeah they have books too, but it's not very popular on their site). I think there's definitely a niche to explore in a Kits.com but for books category! Anyway, we'll see :D
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I love this idea and believe the market is large enough that an idea like this could succeed even with existing competitors. I also like your idea of marketing through influencers, my 2c would be to trailer your website and messaging to influencers only and expand once you have traction.
One thing that isn’t clear to me, is why would an influencer use your list opposed to their own blog or tweet where they could embed affiliate links? Will they be able to earn affiliate income while using your product?
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Thanks! That's pretty much what I intend to do. I plan to target small-mid size influencers who don't necessarily have a strong blog presence and who would benefit from a site like this. Right now I'm working on added an "Editor's Pick" feature that can help feature new creators and amazing lists. I think the added benefit to the influencer is all the extra traffic that my platform can channel to their list!
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This is a nice idea. From what people have suggested it's not new. But something doesn't need to be new to succeed. It just needs to be better than other options out there or have a unique selling point.
The fact that it's a passion of yours will help you to make it better than the competition, or find that one 'thing' that sets it apart. Good luck with it!
I think getting the right influencers on board will be a big part. Not necessarily the biggest follower count, but the ones who's followers are interested in what they're reading.
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$99/month? I don't understand.
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I linked Stripe revenue and tested the Stripe integration with 2 credit cards then forgot to refund. So far haven't had any real paying customers =)
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Looks like a great project. What will it take for you to turn it into full-time work?
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I'm pretty much already there, I think. Been spending all my working time building it for the last 2 months. I guess at this stage market validation is important. Figuring out what type of influencers to target, and what features to build. I guess if 6 months down the line I still didn't have any paying customers or strong growth, I'd have to re-consider, but for now I'm pretty gung-ho on getting this out there and building a platform
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What’s the tech stack?
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Using Firebase/Firestore for backend, ReactJS for front-end, and plain CSS for the styling. Nothing fancy, just the basics.
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Awesome!
Do check out wise books, who recommend books based on famous people's recommendations
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Cool, thanks for the tip! I somehow have never heard of this site haha
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It's great to see that you've honed in on something surrounding your passion. All the best for your endeavors!
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Thanks so much!
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I definitely see a place for such a site. How are you going to acquire users?
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Well the main idea of growth I envision is through social media. People can create lists and share them with their fans/communities, which should help raise the viral coefficient of the site. My goal is to not spend too much on promotion, just mainly contacting influencers and getting community members onboard
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My main engine of growth will be social media. Influencers can create lists and share them with their fans, and people without large fanbases can still make lists and share them to communities they are members of. For instance, I like cryptocurrency, so I can make lists about learning cryptocurrency and share them in those communities. I'm hoping that all the sharing will raise the viral co-efficient and the site will start to promote itself.
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Yeah man... sounds like a winner.
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Sounds brilliant dude. Especially because it's something you love and are passionate about. Same case with me a d https://trackmylift.app ! Good luck!
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That sounds worthy, I have seen some products which do automatic recommendations but a community for book discussions and recommendations sounds like a nice thing to be a part of.
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Thanks, I think so too! I see a lot of books being recommended on Twitter by influencers, but there wasn't really a central node for recommending books. Hopefully readlist can fill that gap!
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