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Howdy HN, while this is on page #1 I figure I should "strike while the iron is hot" and talk about the book club service that I recently launched on https://bo
by kaycebasques 5y ago
Howdy HN, while this is on page #1 I figure I should "strike while the iron is hot" and talk about the book club service that I recently launched on https://bookworm.club https://bookworm.club [1]. Long story short, instead of a traditional book club, where you get together and vote on what book to read next (or don't have any say in what the next book is) I wanted to build a service that would automagically match you with other people around the world who also happen to be reading the same book as you. I think it has the potential for some very interesting conversation and connection making! The way it works is you just tell us what you're reading (or let us track your currently reading list on Goodreads) and we match you up with anyone else also reading that and help you organize a meeting to discuss the book. Feedback welcome. And sorry if anything on the site breaks... I'm a technical writer by trade, not an engineer. Although I consider myself fairly technical this is probably one of the biggest technical projects I've created to date. An eye-opening experience! I have a little more information about the book club service at [3].
[1] As you can tell from the history of the site, I originally wrote the salt post in 2018 and then didn't do anything for a few years. I recently quit my job and took a 1-year sabbatical (which will probably end up being only 9 months) [2] and finally invested the time/energy to build the book club service I had been kicking around all this time. The blog is my place to discuss interesting ideas from whatever books I'm reading (such as this fascinating "resulting" idea [4] I learned from Thinking In Bets). If you would like to contribute to the blog I am open to that possibility (just dig around on the site or my personal site to figure out how to contact me).
[2]: https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
[3]: https://bookworm.club/about/ https://bookworm.club/about/
[4]: https://bookworm.club/blog/resulting/ https://bookworm.club/blog/resulting/
- woile 5y agoThanks for sharing, this fits me really well, I'm gonna give it a try.
- kaycebasques 5y agoYour support is much appreciated!
- atlasunshrugged 5y agoCool idea, I'll check it out! I've been looking for an online book club that indulges my more esoteric tastes (the last books I read were was a biography of a private mercenary, a sci-fi book, and now a book on the functioning of government) that I wouldn't get from a more traditional book club!
- kaycebasques 5y agoYeah that's exactly my issue too. My interests are all over the board and I don't want to hound my friends into reading a book about a mercenary (to use your example). I just want to talk with other people who already find that topic interesting.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoI signed up! I only see how to add books to my account or to connect GoodReads (which I don’t use). How can I see what other people are reading or if I have any matches? I don’t even see anything like “zero matches”…
- kaycebasques 5y agoThank you for signing up. In the spirit of MVP I am doing the matching manually now. If the service takes off I will automate that. I understand what you're saying about the need for UI around whether or not there are any matches.
- dang 5y agoYou should post this as a Show HN. See https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638. It's also good to follow the advice we give to YC startups about how to launch on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/yli.html https://news.ycombinator.com/yli.html. The logistical aspects only apply to YC startups, but the communication parts apply to anybody who wants to get attention for their startup or project on HN. Since the submission today has been on the front page, you should wait at least a few weeks before doing this, to let the hivemind caches clear. Follow-up posts shouldn't come too quickly or else they start having an anti-curiosity effect (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). If you want to send a draft to hn@ycombinator.com, I can help you edit it. The same offer goes for anybody. However: be aware that the inbox is brutal, my worst case latency is shit, and so you may end up having to wait a long time!
- kaycebasques 5y agoThanks dang, I'll go for it.