5 ms·

Show HN: Daily Read – Receive a chapter a day from popular public domain books

29 points by azum61 5y ago

azum61 5y ago
Enjoyed working on this project and thought I would share!
- blockwriter 5y ago
  Do you think this would work with new ip as an offering from a small publisher?
  - azum61 5y ago
    Hmm, that is an interesting thought...not one that I had considered!
FR10 5y ago
I thought of looking for something like this just this morning, so glad it already exists. I really like the idea that its one chapter a day, however I don't fully understand the "Send time" preference, being an email, I think it doesnt really matter. Anyways, great work!
- azum61 5y ago
  Good timing! For the "Send time", it probably doesn't matter too much since it is email (as you said). On the flip side, it always seems like these things tend to come through really early in the morning and then get buried under other emails that come in, so wanted to give some flexibility here!
davchana 5y ago
I did almost something similar. I split a pdf book into pages, one page per pdf file, named all in numbers like 01,02,03 ... etc. Then I put it in a Google drive folder, and, and a google script emailed me 2 pages every day as pdf attachments, and deleted those 2 pages from drive.
- azum61 5y ago
  Nice, always forget how you can do so much cool stuff with Google Script.
AnonC 5y ago
To the OP/author: the homepage is devoid of details that would be useful. Could you please include details on how it works so that people can know without signing up? Questions: 0. Which email address should users add to their address book or allow list so that the chances of the emails going to spam are reduced? 1. What time of the day does it send the emails? From other comments it seems like the user can choose, but does it account for time zones that the user would understand easily? 2. Within the email, is the entire chapter embedded in plain text or is it HTML formatted or both (left to the email client to pick)? 3. For works that are originally not in English (like The Count of Monte Cristo), which translation by whom and when is included on your site? Why was that choice made? 4. What is the source of the public domain books on this site? 5. Do you need any financial support (such as donations) or are looking to create paid subscriptions (though the books are public domain, there is a cost to operating this platform)?
- azum61 5y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, will see about incorporating some of this.
  - Tarsul 5y ago
    I really like your idea and hope you expand on it. E.g. let the user choose the intervalls or offer pages instead of chapters (chapter length might be very different depending on the book?). Also, international languages or at least the original language also.
- azum61 5y ago
  And if you are curious, the answers are below! 0. Emails come from mailer@dailyread.xyz 1. Time zone is determined by the user's browser. 2. Chapter emails are in HTML. 3. Translations are what was available from https://www.gutenberg.org/ https://www.gutenberg.org/ 4. All from from https://www.gutenberg.org/ https://www.gutenberg.org/ 5. Hmm, had not really thought too much into this yet. Should be set up to run at a minimal cost, but might add a donation link or something like that if people are interested in making small donations.
dubbel 5y ago
Nice idea, I really like the simplicity of it and how the design reflects it, too. Are you sending the emails directly from your server, or using some service in between?
- azum61 5y ago
  The site is build on AWS serverless tech (one of the reasons I started it was to play around with this a bit more). So, emails are sent via SES.
thepuppet33r 5y ago
A great offline alternative to this is the Serial reader: https://www.serialreader.org/ https://www.serialreader.org/ I've been using it for years and they keep adding public domain books.
- azum61 5y ago
  Nice, had not heard of that before.
zarie 5y ago
This is awesome! - just signed up to get A Tale of Two Cities (want to see what all the hype is about) I have a google scripts that set up to email myself my personal goals in the morning, and now I want to set up an application to let other people create 'SMART goals' and set up a recurring email similar to how you it set up for Daily Read. Do you have a blog or some content on how you went about setting this up? I'm stuck on figuring out how to let each user schedule their emails - willing to compensate you for your help! (azum61)

29 points by azum61 5y ago

azum61 5y ago

Enjoyed working on this project and thought I would share!

blockwriter 5y ago
Do you think this would work with new ip as an offering from a small publisher?
- azum61 5y ago
  Hmm, that is an interesting thought...not one that I had considered!

FR10 5y ago

I thought of looking for something like this just this morning, so glad it already exists. I really like the idea that its one chapter a day, however I don't fully understand the "Send time" preference, being an email, I think it doesnt really matter. Anyways, great work!

azum61 5y ago
Good timing! For the "Send time", it probably doesn't matter too much since it is email (as you said). On the flip side, it always seems like these things tend to come through really early in the morning and then get buried under other emails that come in, so wanted to give some flexibility here!

davchana 5y ago

I did almost something similar. I split a pdf book into pages, one page per pdf file, named all in numbers like 01,02,03 ... etc. Then I put it in a Google drive folder, and, and a google script emailed me 2 pages every day as pdf attachments, and deleted those 2 pages from drive.

azum61 5y ago
Nice, always forget how you can do so much cool stuff with Google Script.

AnonC 5y ago

To the OP/author: the homepage is devoid of details that would be useful. Could you please include details on how it works so that people can know without signing up? Questions: 0. Which email address should users add to their address book or allow list so that the chances of the emails going to spam are reduced? 1. What time of the day does it send the emails? From other comments it seems like the user can choose, but does it account for time zones that the user would understand easily? 2. Within the email, is the entire chapter embedded in plain text or is it HTML formatted or both (left to the email client to pick)? 3. For works that are originally not in English (like The Count of Monte Cristo), which translation by whom and when is included on your site? Why was that choice made? 4. What is the source of the public domain books on this site? 5. Do you need any financial support (such as donations) or are looking to create paid subscriptions (though the books are public domain, there is a cost to operating this platform)?

azum61 5y ago
Thanks for the feedback, will see about incorporating some of this.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  I really like your idea and hope you expand on it. E.g. let the user choose the intervalls or offer pages instead of chapters (chapter length might be very different depending on the book?). Also, international languages or at least the original language also.
azum61 5y ago
And if you are curious, the answers are below! 0. Emails come from mailer@dailyread.xyz 1. Time zone is determined by the user's browser. 2. Chapter emails are in HTML. 3. Translations are what was available from https://www.gutenberg.org/ https://www.gutenberg.org/ 4. All from from https://www.gutenberg.org/ https://www.gutenberg.org/ 5. Hmm, had not really thought too much into this yet. Should be set up to run at a minimal cost, but might add a donation link or something like that if people are interested in making small donations.

dubbel 5y ago

Nice idea, I really like the simplicity of it and how the design reflects it, too. Are you sending the emails directly from your server, or using some service in between?

azum61 5y ago
The site is build on AWS serverless tech (one of the reasons I started it was to play around with this a bit more). So, emails are sent via SES.

thepuppet33r 5y ago

A great offline alternative to this is the Serial reader: https://www.serialreader.org/ https://www.serialreader.org/ I've been using it for years and they keep adding public domain books.

azum61 5y ago
Nice, had not heard of that before.

zarie 5y ago

This is awesome! - just signed up to get A Tale of Two Cities (want to see what all the hype is about) I have a google scripts that set up to email myself my personal goals in the morning, and now I want to set up an application to let other people create 'SMART goals' and set up a recurring email similar to how you it set up for Daily Read. Do you have a blog or some content on how you went about setting this up? I'm stuck on figuring out how to let each user schedule their emails - willing to compensate you for your help! (azum61)