9 ms·

Show HN: Bubblin – Bandcamp for books

138 points by marvindanig 8y ago

marvindanig 8y ago
Hi HN! Meet Bubblin Superbooks, a social book reader for web. It's _iPad first_ and all the books (mostly public domain samples) work offline too using a service worker. Hope you like it! :-) Good/bad, all feedback is very welcome!
- Semaphor 8y ago
  I see bandcamp as a store where the fees for the artists are straightforward, the barrier of entry is low, the artists can set the price themselves and the user has format options. I didn't even know it had any real social features. So to me, the headline chosen here is very misleading.
  - sonicaa 8y ago
    > I didn't even know it had any real social features. hi, Sonica Arora, CTO of Bubblin here. social is very critical to books, though I agree with you that with Bandcamp and in general with music it isn't so much. our store fees, transactions and writer-reader sale stuff and options will be just as transparent and simple as it is for Bandcamp. thanks for sharing your views!
- chrisco255 8y ago
  I like the idea. The site is well-done and I'll definitely revisit...however...I wanted to ask about some of the comments in the FAQ, specifically: > Files are about encoding those rotten ideals and force > them on the society. > So why should e-books be files at all? Well, without some kind of common format, you would need a browser always in order to reliably view a book. Browsers are pretty awful on e-readers...so you're basically forced to read a book from your phone or tablet through a browser with this concept. Another problem is that unless the books are embeddable HTML, it's easy to imagine that your Bubblin formatting would not work well if I try to self-publish to say, my personal blog. So am I not just trading one proprietary file format for proprietary HTML/CSS/JS markup? I like the vision. E-books can be so much more than they currently are and it would be neat to see more rich visualization and interactivity inside of reading experiences.
  - marvindanig 8y ago
    > …unless the books are embeddable HTML, it's easy to imagine that your Bubblin formatting would not work well if I try to self-publish to say, my personal blog. So am I not just trading one proprietary file format for proprietary HTML/CSS/JS markup? That is correct. At a very high-level we'd ultimately need to spec out a web standard to support books natively on web to avoid one proprietary format from another; like the video tag perhaps. For now (though it is still unfinished, raw and very very early) we have a sister project called Bookiza.js [0] that let's you publish a Superbook on your own website using markdown or haml. :-) [0] https://bookiza.io https://bookiza.io
- darrenf 8y ago
  I browsed through a book, really enjoying the interface - though I hit an issue here: https://bubblin.io/book/the-solar-system-by-marvin-danig/22 https://bubblin.io/book/the-solar-system-by-marvin-danig/22 The right hand page (leaf?) says "Your browser does not seem to support WebGL. Find out how to get it here.". The error message is impossible to select and copy; it links to https://get.webgl.org/ https://get.webgl.org/ which tells me my browser does support WebGL, showing the spinning cube. Also, entering reader mode unexpectedly (ironically?) shows only a set of keyboard shortcuts, and this despite having no keyboard connected. Using Brave on an iPad Pro.
  - darrenf 8y ago
    Then this happened 4 pages later: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfs8zxrl0kj8r89/Photo%2018-12-2018%2C%2006%2053%2058.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfs8zxrl0kj8r89/Photo%2018-12-2018...
    - marvindanig 8y ago
      1. Thanks! And yes, I'm aware of these issues pertaining to touch surfaces with/without keyboard and also on browsers that return isTouch true falsely on some machines running on Windows & Chromebook. Our next iteration of Bookiza early next year will solve all of these edge cases gracefully. 2. That book on Solar System is an extreme example. I'm loading the heaviest MathJax library on that page to render simple math formula. Katex would suffice there and the bug would be gone. :-)
- dsaw 8y ago
  Hi marvindanig, great product, loved the YC application – very pleased to see that you haven't changed over the years, and are still creating!
asyncanup 8y ago
I love the ES6 book, crisp and clear The ui seems considered and polished, works good on mobile for me
rcavezza 8y ago
What does "bandcamp" refer to? Is that another webapp or are you comparing the bookreader to a summer camp?
- marvindanig 8y ago
  It's the business model that we're geared towards. But we're still writing code as we speak so any suggestions on alternative models are most welcome. [edits] Hoping that site doesn't crash. brb.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  https://bandcamp.com/ https://bandcamp.com/
mathnmusic 8y ago
How can one go about authoring a book on your platform? It's not the same old EPUB, is it?
- marvindanig 8y ago
  We have a code playground for authoring, so it's almost like frontend development on each page of your book. Here'a quick tutorial if you're up for it: https://bubblin.io/docs/tutorial https://bubblin.io/docs/tutorial \m/
baroffoos 8y ago
Had a read of the FAQ and it doesn't seem like its for me. I prefer my books as epub so they work nicely on my ereader. I also require that they be able to be downloaded as files so I can store them on my hdd and they are safely archived so if the original seller pulls them offline or the website shuts down I will always have access to them. This services feels more like a longer form blog platform tbh but good luck and I hope others find use in it.
- sonicaa 8y ago
  > prefer my books as epub so they work nicely on my ereader. I also require that they be able to be downloaded as files hi Sonica, CTO & cofounder here. i'm sure there are a number of nuggets in the epub standard to pick up! it's just that it is too much friction for people to download a file, navigate to the file on the disk and wait for it to open before they can start reading the book. we do have a dry no-javascript no-frills mode for books on Bubblin right now, if that helps. we've written an essay [1] discussing some of these concerns and will be happy to engage/implement in a more accommodating fashion. [1] https://bubblin.io/concerns https://bubblin.io/concerns
  - kungtotte 8y ago
    Really? People who are about to spend a good amount of hours reading a book thinks it's a bother to wait two minutes for a file to download? Using any kind of modern system you'll have a standard download location and a "Open with..." dialog with the default app for a given file type selected, and most epub-capable apps will remember the recently used files so you don't have to. This smells more like a "we don't want to" instead of "we can't"...
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Seem reasonable to me. Most people probably don't have an ebook reader installed, and would struggle to find one and install it. The site could point to one, but that essentially means they become responsible for supporting it. Personally, I'd also prefer an epub, but I'm not the average user.
voxl 8y ago
The entire point of bandcamp, for me, is FLAC downloads. There was already a comment about how there aren't epub downloads. So this is hardly the "Bandcamp for books." More like the "Spotify for books" I would think.
- marvindanig 8y ago
  > Spotify for books Interesting. I think we're drawing from both Spotify and Bandcamp here somewhat. Overall, since there are differences between how/why we consume music vs. how and what we do with books so there will be differences in final implementation of Bubblin eventually and we might just sit closer to Spotify then. We had to start somewhere, and Bandcamp for Books wasn't a bad place to begin with.
JanSt 8y ago
Looks nice :-) What are you planning for the future? I'd like to take a lot of notes and get a nice overview for future review / a lot of learning features. Any thoughts on adding discussions? I'd also like you to add a lot of essays ;-) Bug report: I verified my email, but it still tells me to do so. (Using on Macbook, validated from iPhone, so different device)
- marvindanig 8y ago
  Discussions are our next milestone, so yes! I think it will be good to share our roadmap somewhere on the site. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
aportnoy 8y ago
Explain to the folks at home what Bandcamp is
fnord123 8y ago
Interesting that they go whole hog with the tournament model where everything is based on the hustle and luck. https://www.demontfortliterature.com/ https://www.demontfortliterature.com/ takes the opposing approach where they hire authors for a stable salary.
stakhanov 8y ago
I couldn't find any info on your page regarding the royalties model that you're going to use. How much of a cut are you going to take? Is it going to be closer to amazon's 70% or closer to bandcamp's 15%? Why do you have the restriction to original work and public domain work "with your own take"? For me, personally, that's a bit disappointing, since I work largely on digital reproductions of public domain work leaving it "as is". One of my leisure time pursuits is to find interesting old books on cavalry, making them into high-quality reflowable e-books. It's a lot of work. I sometimes have to find multiple originals in libraries and antiquarian bookstores if there isn't a single original available in a good enough condition. Then I type them in multiple times to make sure there are no typos. I scan & vectorize the graphics. Then I produce nice reflowable EPUBs and ensure compatibility with a wide range of hardware. That kind of thing is hard work, and yet that sort of work is probably not protectable by copyright. It's been a personal frustration of mine that platforms for bookselling are often so uninviting towards that kind of content. -- It would be pretty easy for me to take a work like that and make it into an edition "with commentary", but, honestly, I'd much rather allow these works to shine in their original glory.
- marvindanig 8y ago
  > Why do you have the restriction to original work and public domain work "with your own take"? Fixed and deployed. Yes, feel free to publish public domain works as you like it! > …regarding the royalties model that you're going to use. 15:85 for Bubblin:Creator using simple Stripe Connect. I'll be rolling out these pages in the next few hours.
  - stakhanov 8y ago
    Cool! ...I like your level of responsiveness towards user suggestions :-)
- Fang_ 8y ago
  > One of my leisure time pursuits is to find interesting old books on cavalry Woah, that sounds cool! Do you have anything publicly available?
deng 8y ago
From a user's perspective: The main point of Bandcamp is that you actually own what you buy. No DRM, no additional charge for lossless, properly tagged, including cover art, everything in a perfectly normal ZIP anybody can use and nobody can take away from you again. That is why Bandcamp was so refreshing when it started, and that is why I buy my music there whenever possible. As far as I can see, this site is nothing like that.
- thinkmassive 8y ago
  Exactly, and LeanPub already covers the analogous use case for books fairly well.
faebser 8y ago
I am a huge fan of bandcamp, I buy most of my music because I can download the FLAC files and put them on my streaming server. I was rather disappointed that instead of providing polished, DRM free ebook files but went with a web based version that I cannot transfer to my ebook reader. I would be more than happy to not only pay the authors but also for the work that you guys do by providing nice clean files. There is another small thing that bugs me. Why did you choose to emulate books in your reader even down to turning pages? IMHO this is rather unnecessary, just presenting the book like a long article with well done typography would have been enough. (the reason, again IMHO, that ebook readers have virtual pages is that their displays are to slow to have smooth scroll)
- marvindanig 8y ago
  I'd never read Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban like an article or a PDF file. No one will. This way I can… at least my nephew will. We've discussed this subject at length over here: https://bubblin.io/concerns https://bubblin.io/concerns Thanks!
  - all2 8y ago
    I read a little of what you link. I have a concern: you are ignoring the current state of the market and hoping your new standard will be adopted. I have an eInk reader that is about 10 years old. It is serviceable. I put most of my eBooks on that for reading. I won't consider a service that doesn't have the epub format. The first thing I do (before buying an eBook anywhere) is check to see if I can get it on my e-reader. I already have to jump through hoops to get my Amazon purchases onto it. I won't use your service because it doesn't have what I need. And there are many people like me.
silveroriole 8y ago
I read all the time on my iPad. Sorry for the negative feedback, but I don’t think I would use this. If there’s no pdf/ePub download that I can put into a reader of my choice, see alongside my other downloaded books, take anywhere with me, categorise, highlight, bookmark, skip around in, etc, then it’s not for me, and it’s not like Bandcamp. On the iPad there is no friction with downloading such files to a reader app - it’s one or two clicks - so I’m not sure why that is the reason given for no providing it. Also, the font is simply gigantic, I felt like I was back in primary school! I couldn’t discover how to resize it, if that is possible.
- marvindanig 8y ago
  Why do you need to download explicitly when your book is already offline using a service-worker? Serious question.
  - simonh 8y ago
    How about for the reasons given, non of which you addressed? But to the point you do raise - so now I have to keep a tab open in safari constantly for each book I'm reading or might want to read? If I'm going on a trip and want to take half a dozen books because I'm not sure which I will read, now I've got 6 tabs open in safari constantly.
    - marvindanig 8y ago
      > so now I have to keep a tab open in safari constantly… You can close the tabs and re-open any number of books without an Internet connection. The books will work normally. That is the whole point of offline-first!
      - Angostura 8y ago
        How? by trawling through History?
        8y ago
qwerty456127 8y ago
How do I find any new books there? I don't mind the classics yet I feel curious about what do indie writers write today.
the_other_guy 8y ago
I love your website by the way. If I want to read 1984 on EPUB I will just download it from Guttenberg or something but if I am reading it in browser I will certainly use your service. I really don't know what all that negative feedback is about. Of course, that doesn't mean we should turn into a producthunt-like shilling party with fake positive comments, you guys need to criticize without passing negative feelings to the authors. It's really depressing to work months on something and then when you show it to people they start complaining about things that aren't in your product's scope in the first place.
- sonicaa 8y ago
  Thank you! I'm glad you like it. :-)
bpicolo 8y ago
> Welcome to Bandcamp of books, comics and magazines! I'd be wary of using that phrase directly on your home page. That's definitely making use a of trademark you don't own - seems like a quick path to some legal trouble with bandcamp?
triptych 8y ago
It all looks really cool but can you please clarify 1) licensing -- all your git projects say "license TBD" for many months. 2) clarify the selling options - 3) If I want to publish a book on my own site, why do I need to authenticate to bubblin.io 4) what is your accessibility story?
drannex 8y ago
Quick UI/UX note: You should remove the border around the titles until you hover over them, way more pleasing on the eye and less "in your face"!
rafael-rinaldi 8y ago
I'm glad to see you're using my code for the book hover states: https://codepen.io/rafaelrinaldi/pen/LEYyKZ https://codepen.io/rafaelrinaldi/pen/LEYyKZ If possible can you just mention it somewhere, or just buy me a coffee instead: https://buymeacoff.ee/rinaldi https://buymeacoff.ee/rinaldi
- sonicaa 8y ago
  I've added Codepen's MIT License [0] to your name to credit you correctly at the right spot on our CSS. New build will be rolled out in a couple of hours so kindly check back again. If however you're still uncomfortable about us using this experiment without a coffee, do let me know and we'll remove it from Bubblin completely. Just kidding, we'll sponsor you a coffee as well ;-) [0] https://blog.codepen.io/legal/licensing/ https://blog.codepen.io/legal/licensing/
  - rafael-rinaldi 8y ago
    Doesn’t bother me at all I am genuinely happy to see it being used. Good luck with the product.

138 points by marvindanig 8y ago

Hi HN! Meet Bubblin Superbooks, a social book reader for web. It's _iPad first_ and all the books (mostly public domain samples) work offline too using a service worker. Hope you like it! :-) Good/bad, all feedback is very welcome!

Semaphor 8y ago
I see bandcamp as a store where the fees for the artists are straightforward, the barrier of entry is low, the artists can set the price themselves and the user has format options. I didn't even know it had any real social features. So to me, the headline chosen here is very misleading.
- sonicaa 8y ago
  > I didn't even know it had any real social features. hi, Sonica Arora, CTO of Bubblin here. social is very critical to books, though I agree with you that with Bandcamp and in general with music it isn't so much. our store fees, transactions and writer-reader sale stuff and options will be just as transparent and simple as it is for Bandcamp. thanks for sharing your views!
chrisco255 8y ago
I like the idea. The site is well-done and I'll definitely revisit...however...I wanted to ask about some of the comments in the FAQ, specifically: > Files are about encoding those rotten ideals and force > them on the society. > So why should e-books be files at all? Well, without some kind of common format, you would need a browser always in order to reliably view a book. Browsers are pretty awful on e-readers...so you're basically forced to read a book from your phone or tablet through a browser with this concept. Another problem is that unless the books are embeddable HTML, it's easy to imagine that your Bubblin formatting would not work well if I try to self-publish to say, my personal blog. So am I not just trading one proprietary file format for proprietary HTML/CSS/JS markup? I like the vision. E-books can be so much more than they currently are and it would be neat to see more rich visualization and interactivity inside of reading experiences.
- marvindanig 8y ago
  > …unless the books are embeddable HTML, it's easy to imagine that your Bubblin formatting would not work well if I try to self-publish to say, my personal blog. So am I not just trading one proprietary file format for proprietary HTML/CSS/JS markup? That is correct. At a very high-level we'd ultimately need to spec out a web standard to support books natively on web to avoid one proprietary format from another; like the video tag perhaps. For now (though it is still unfinished, raw and very very early) we have a sister project called Bookiza.js [0] that let's you publish a Superbook on your own website using markdown or haml. :-) [0] https://bookiza.io https://bookiza.io
darrenf 8y ago
I browsed through a book, really enjoying the interface - though I hit an issue here: https://bubblin.io/book/the-solar-system-by-marvin-danig/22 https://bubblin.io/book/the-solar-system-by-marvin-danig/22 The right hand page (leaf?) says "Your browser does not seem to support WebGL. Find out how to get it here.". The error message is impossible to select and copy; it links to https://get.webgl.org/ https://get.webgl.org/ which tells me my browser does support WebGL, showing the spinning cube. Also, entering reader mode unexpectedly (ironically?) shows only a set of keyboard shortcuts, and this despite having no keyboard connected. Using Brave on an iPad Pro.
- darrenf 8y ago
  Then this happened 4 pages later: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfs8zxrl0kj8r89/Photo%2018-12-2018%2C%2006%2053%2058.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfs8zxrl0kj8r89/Photo%2018-12-2018...
  - marvindanig 8y ago
    1. Thanks! And yes, I'm aware of these issues pertaining to touch surfaces with/without keyboard and also on browsers that return isTouch true falsely on some machines running on Windows & Chromebook. Our next iteration of Bookiza early next year will solve all of these edge cases gracefully. 2. That book on Solar System is an extreme example. I'm loading the heaviest MathJax library on that page to render simple math formula. Katex would suffice there and the bug would be gone. :-)
dsaw 8y ago
Hi marvindanig, great product, loved the YC application – very pleased to see that you haven't changed over the years, and are still creating!

asyncanup 8y ago

I love the ES6 book, crisp and clear The ui seems considered and polished, works good on mobile for me

rcavezza 8y ago

What does "bandcamp" refer to? Is that another webapp or are you comparing the bookreader to a summer camp?

marvindanig 8y ago
It's the business model that we're geared towards. But we're still writing code as we speak so any suggestions on alternative models are most welcome. [edits] Hoping that site doesn't crash. brb.
nerdponx 8y ago
https://bandcamp.com/ https://bandcamp.com/

mathnmusic 8y ago

How can one go about authoring a book on your platform? It's not the same old EPUB, is it?

marvindanig 8y ago
We have a code playground for authoring, so it's almost like frontend development on each page of your book. Here'a quick tutorial if you're up for it: https://bubblin.io/docs/tutorial https://bubblin.io/docs/tutorial \m/

baroffoos 8y ago

Had a read of the FAQ and it doesn't seem like its for me. I prefer my books as epub so they work nicely on my ereader. I also require that they be able to be downloaded as files so I can store them on my hdd and they are safely archived so if the original seller pulls them offline or the website shuts down I will always have access to them. This services feels more like a longer form blog platform tbh but good luck and I hope others find use in it.

sonicaa 8y ago
> prefer my books as epub so they work nicely on my ereader. I also require that they be able to be downloaded as files hi Sonica, CTO & cofounder here. i'm sure there are a number of nuggets in the epub standard to pick up! it's just that it is too much friction for people to download a file, navigate to the file on the disk and wait for it to open before they can start reading the book. we do have a dry no-javascript no-frills mode for books on Bubblin right now, if that helps. we've written an essay [1] discussing some of these concerns and will be happy to engage/implement in a more accommodating fashion. [1] https://bubblin.io/concerns https://bubblin.io/concerns
- kungtotte 8y ago
  Really? People who are about to spend a good amount of hours reading a book thinks it's a bother to wait two minutes for a file to download? Using any kind of modern system you'll have a standard download location and a "Open with..." dialog with the default app for a given file type selected, and most epub-capable apps will remember the recently used files so you don't have to. This smells more like a "we don't want to" instead of "we can't"...
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Seem reasonable to me. Most people probably don't have an ebook reader installed, and would struggle to find one and install it. The site could point to one, but that essentially means they become responsible for supporting it. Personally, I'd also prefer an epub, but I'm not the average user.

voxl 8y ago

The entire point of bandcamp, for me, is FLAC downloads. There was already a comment about how there aren't epub downloads. So this is hardly the "Bandcamp for books." More like the "Spotify for books" I would think.

marvindanig 8y ago
> Spotify for books Interesting. I think we're drawing from both Spotify and Bandcamp here somewhat. Overall, since there are differences between how/why we consume music vs. how and what we do with books so there will be differences in final implementation of Bubblin eventually and we might just sit closer to Spotify then. We had to start somewhere, and Bandcamp for Books wasn't a bad place to begin with.

JanSt 8y ago

Looks nice :-) What are you planning for the future? I'd like to take a lot of notes and get a nice overview for future review / a lot of learning features. Any thoughts on adding discussions? I'd also like you to add a lot of essays ;-) Bug report: I verified my email, but it still tells me to do so. (Using on Macbook, validated from iPhone, so different device)

marvindanig 8y ago
Discussions are our next milestone, so yes! I think it will be good to share our roadmap somewhere on the site. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

aportnoy 8y ago

Explain to the folks at home what Bandcamp is

fnord123 8y ago

Interesting that they go whole hog with the tournament model where everything is based on the hustle and luck. https://www.demontfortliterature.com/ https://www.demontfortliterature.com/ takes the opposing approach where they hire authors for a stable salary.

stakhanov 8y ago

I couldn't find any info on your page regarding the royalties model that you're going to use. How much of a cut are you going to take? Is it going to be closer to amazon's 70% or closer to bandcamp's 15%? Why do you have the restriction to original work and public domain work "with your own take"? For me, personally, that's a bit disappointing, since I work largely on digital reproductions of public domain work leaving it "as is". One of my leisure time pursuits is to find interesting old books on cavalry, making them into high-quality reflowable e-books. It's a lot of work. I sometimes have to find multiple originals in libraries and antiquarian bookstores if there isn't a single original available in a good enough condition. Then I type them in multiple times to make sure there are no typos. I scan & vectorize the graphics. Then I produce nice reflowable EPUBs and ensure compatibility with a wide range of hardware. That kind of thing is hard work, and yet that sort of work is probably not protectable by copyright. It's been a personal frustration of mine that platforms for bookselling are often so uninviting towards that kind of content. -- It would be pretty easy for me to take a work like that and make it into an edition "with commentary", but, honestly, I'd much rather allow these works to shine in their original glory.

marvindanig 8y ago
> Why do you have the restriction to original work and public domain work "with your own take"? Fixed and deployed. Yes, feel free to publish public domain works as you like it! > …regarding the royalties model that you're going to use. 15:85 for Bubblin:Creator using simple Stripe Connect. I'll be rolling out these pages in the next few hours.
- stakhanov 8y ago
  Cool! ...I like your level of responsiveness towards user suggestions :-)
Fang_ 8y ago
> One of my leisure time pursuits is to find interesting old books on cavalry Woah, that sounds cool! Do you have anything publicly available?

deng 8y ago

From a user's perspective: The main point of Bandcamp is that you actually own what you buy. No DRM, no additional charge for lossless, properly tagged, including cover art, everything in a perfectly normal ZIP anybody can use and nobody can take away from you again. That is why Bandcamp was so refreshing when it started, and that is why I buy my music there whenever possible. As far as I can see, this site is nothing like that.

thinkmassive 8y ago
Exactly, and LeanPub already covers the analogous use case for books fairly well.

faebser 8y ago

I am a huge fan of bandcamp, I buy most of my music because I can download the FLAC files and put them on my streaming server. I was rather disappointed that instead of providing polished, DRM free ebook files but went with a web based version that I cannot transfer to my ebook reader. I would be more than happy to not only pay the authors but also for the work that you guys do by providing nice clean files. There is another small thing that bugs me. Why did you choose to emulate books in your reader even down to turning pages? IMHO this is rather unnecessary, just presenting the book like a long article with well done typography would have been enough. (the reason, again IMHO, that ebook readers have virtual pages is that their displays are to slow to have smooth scroll)

marvindanig 8y ago
I'd never read Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban like an article or a PDF file. No one will. This way I can… at least my nephew will. We've discussed this subject at length over here: https://bubblin.io/concerns https://bubblin.io/concerns Thanks!
- all2 8y ago
  I read a little of what you link. I have a concern: you are ignoring the current state of the market and hoping your new standard will be adopted. I have an eInk reader that is about 10 years old. It is serviceable. I put most of my eBooks on that for reading. I won't consider a service that doesn't have the epub format. The first thing I do (before buying an eBook anywhere) is check to see if I can get it on my e-reader. I already have to jump through hoops to get my Amazon purchases onto it. I won't use your service because it doesn't have what I need. And there are many people like me.

silveroriole 8y ago

I read all the time on my iPad. Sorry for the negative feedback, but I don’t think I would use this. If there’s no pdf/ePub download that I can put into a reader of my choice, see alongside my other downloaded books, take anywhere with me, categorise, highlight, bookmark, skip around in, etc, then it’s not for me, and it’s not like Bandcamp. On the iPad there is no friction with downloading such files to a reader app - it’s one or two clicks - so I’m not sure why that is the reason given for no providing it. Also, the font is simply gigantic, I felt like I was back in primary school! I couldn’t discover how to resize it, if that is possible.

marvindanig 8y ago
Why do you need to download explicitly when your book is already offline using a service-worker? Serious question.
- simonh 8y ago
  How about for the reasons given, non of which you addressed? But to the point you do raise - so now I have to keep a tab open in safari constantly for each book I'm reading or might want to read? If I'm going on a trip and want to take half a dozen books because I'm not sure which I will read, now I've got 6 tabs open in safari constantly.
  - marvindanig 8y ago
    > so now I have to keep a tab open in safari constantly… You can close the tabs and re-open any number of books without an Internet connection. The books will work normally. That is the whole point of offline-first!
    - Angostura 8y ago
      How? by trawling through History?
      - 8y ago

qwerty456127 8y ago

How do I find any new books there? I don't mind the classics yet I feel curious about what do indie writers write today.

the_other_guy 8y ago

I love your website by the way. If I want to read 1984 on EPUB I will just download it from Guttenberg or something but if I am reading it in browser I will certainly use your service. I really don't know what all that negative feedback is about. Of course, that doesn't mean we should turn into a producthunt-like shilling party with fake positive comments, you guys need to criticize without passing negative feelings to the authors. It's really depressing to work months on something and then when you show it to people they start complaining about things that aren't in your product's scope in the first place.

sonicaa 8y ago
Thank you! I'm glad you like it. :-)

bpicolo 8y ago

> Welcome to Bandcamp of books, comics and magazines! I'd be wary of using that phrase directly on your home page. That's definitely making use a of trademark you don't own - seems like a quick path to some legal trouble with bandcamp?

triptych 8y ago

It all looks really cool but can you please clarify 1) licensing -- all your git projects say "license TBD" for many months. 2) clarify the selling options - 3) If I want to publish a book on my own site, why do I need to authenticate to bubblin.io 4) what is your accessibility story?

drannex 8y ago

Quick UI/UX note: You should remove the border around the titles until you hover over them, way more pleasing on the eye and less "in your face"!

rafael-rinaldi 8y ago

I'm glad to see you're using my code for the book hover states: https://codepen.io/rafaelrinaldi/pen/LEYyKZ https://codepen.io/rafaelrinaldi/pen/LEYyKZ If possible can you just mention it somewhere, or just buy me a coffee instead: https://buymeacoff.ee/rinaldi https://buymeacoff.ee/rinaldi

sonicaa 8y ago
I've added Codepen's MIT License [0] to your name to credit you correctly at the right spot on our CSS. New build will be rolled out in a couple of hours so kindly check back again. If however you're still uncomfortable about us using this experiment without a coffee, do let me know and we'll remove it from Bubblin completely. Just kidding, we'll sponsor you a coffee as well ;-) [0] https://blog.codepen.io/legal/licensing/ https://blog.codepen.io/legal/licensing/
- rafael-rinaldi 8y ago
  Doesn’t bother me at all I am genuinely happy to see it being used. Good luck with the product.