5 ms·

Show HN: Papyrus,a simple way to create ebooks

58 points by gt5050 14y ago

gt5050 14y ago
Hello HN, I have been building Papyrus for the past few months. It is a simple web app that allows people to create ebooks easily. Would love to hear your feedback.
- jvandenbroeck 14y ago
  Cool looks very nice! I might use it for my new years' resolution to write something:p I would only be cautious because I'd be afraid of losing data (what if I write a whole book with your site & suddenly you go offline) & on the pdf version there 's also a white border around the book, it might be nice to be able to remove this or change it. For the rest it looks very awesome! Nice templates, easy to use etc=)
- PagingCraig 14y ago
  I really like the concept.
udayaprakash19 14y ago
looks great, is it going to be a free service ? i don't see any pricing page!
- gt5050 14y ago
  We are still building the product. We will add pricing plans soon.
devilankur18 14y ago
Seems like a nice utility for fast ebooks. Going to my bookmarks :)
ntayal 14y ago
Great !! All the best!
Boldewyn 14y ago
Firefox user here. What technology do you use to limit the page to WebKit only?
- gt5050 14y ago
  The editor is basicaly, a div with contenteditable. The implementation varies across Gecko and Webkit. We are working hard to add Firefox support.
  - Boldewyn 14y ago
    Good to hear! I'm curious to see the result.
flexie 14y ago
Looks great. Nice feature that you can import content from any url. It's good that you can get started and see the product without signing in. Also a good guide.
- gt5050 14y ago
  Glad that you liked it.The guide was inspired from https://github.com/Gild/bootstrap-tour https://github.com/Gild/bootstrap-tour
Rayne 14y ago
This looks like a nice service. I could see myself using it. One thing I noticed on the front page is that you do strange things with punctuation. Examples: "Import the contents from the web . Convert your blog to a book in one click." Notice the space before the first period. "Papyrus lets you create books in pdf,epub,kindle formats." No spaces after commas and no 'and' before 'kindle'. Also, there is no space between the last period and "(Coming soon)" in the two rightmost feature sections.
- gt5050 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Will fix it soon.
  - gt5050 14y ago
    This has been fixed.
mikecane 14y ago
How does this differ from Pressbooks? http://pressbooks.com/ http://pressbooks.com/
- gt5050 14y ago
  Its different from Pressbooks 1)Has a cover designer built into the app 2)You could import content directly from anywhere on the web. (File import coming soon) 3)There are a set of themes,you could choose from.(Abilty to customize themes and a few more themes will be rolled out soon) 4)This might not be a differentiating factor,but we have tried to keep the editing process simple.
smountcastle 14y ago
The terms of service discuss a monthly subscription payment but I cannot find any fees listed anywhere on the website. I assume it's free for now and sometime in the future they'll announce pricing. What if I don't like the pricing model? Can I export my content and sell my book somewhere else? How easy is it to get my book out of Papyrus?
- gt5050 14y ago
  The books are available as epub,pdf and mobi as of now.All the content that you would create will be yours forever. You could always sell the books on any platform you like.(Like iBooks,Kindle,Nook). Example of a book created using Papyrus and being sold on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OU5E3K http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OU5E3K
Toshio 14y ago
I went straight into book editing mode, since I plan on publishing an ebook in the following months. The experience has been slightly frustrating. For instance, Shift+Enter when editing the contents of the title doesn't work as advertised. And when trying various things in desperation/frustration, a section of text popped up on me from nowhere, and I couldn't find a way to remove it. I'd say the product has a lot of promise, but you have a long way to go until you reach MVP stage.
- gt5050 14y ago
  Apologies that you had face issues while using Papyrus. I agree the product is still far from perfect. We are working hard to fix the bugs. Thanks again for trying it out.
saravanavijay 14y ago
Great app... Liked the import from url feature..
bpatrianakos 14y ago
It's black and white and red all over. Please tell me you deliberately chose that color scheme for that reason. You'd be my hero if you did.
- gt5050 14y ago
  To be honest, I am not a designer myself.Experimented with a few colors, this looked decent and pushed it.
  - bpatrianakos 14y ago
    Oh no, I wasn't commenting on the design really. I think the design is just fine. I was referring to the joke that a comment above me refers to. "What's black and white and red all over" A newspaper. It's a play on words where "red" is supposed to be "read". I thought maybe you had that in mind when you chose the colors. It would be really clever and funny if you did. If anyone ever asks you that you should totally tell them yes. I bet they'd get a kick out of that.
- akos 14y ago
  Oh it is not so bad..but I agree it needs a little tweak. I really like the 'pinterest look' red buttons though!
  - loumf 14y ago
    He's not saying it's bad -- he's saying that the color scheme is reminiscent of the old joke "What's black and white and red all over" ("A newspaper" as in "re[a]d all over") The joke also applies to ebooks if you do well, so could be a very appropriate one.
mtgx 14y ago
It should probably have a word counter. Also a spellchecker? Chrome seems to identify the spelling errors, but I don't know if all browsers have this.
- gt5050 14y ago
  Thanks. We will try and add these features soon.
prabhats 14y ago
Neat Design! Great UI Experience!! Really dig the "origin of species theme" and in app walk over. Really Usable Product. Would love to publish some books with this.
tanish2khn 14y ago
this is neat - all went good, until I incidentally pressed the 'clear canvas' button on cover page. no undo there? looking forward for more advance features - full screen, double page editing, collaborative editing and review comments ?
- gt5050 14y ago
  Thanks for trying out Papyrus. Will try and add these features soon.
rman666 14y ago
I have to admit that I prefer http://leanpub.com http://leanpub.com
- gt5050 14y ago
  Would like to know your thoughts. Your feedback would be very helpful
  - ramayac 14y ago
    Why don't make a small comparison table vs other similar products to clearly show the benefits of using your product?
  - milkman 14y ago
    Is your project similar to Leanpub? Is your goal to be an alternative to Leanpub? I'd love to see some competition in this space. It's a big space, a big market.
zrail 14y ago
I recently made a service named Docverter[1] that attacks this from the other end, where you write your book in Markdown or various other markup formats and produce ebook files via pandoc and calibre. It's way more do-it-yourself, but it could be a useful backend for this or other services. [1]: http://www.docverter.com http://www.docverter.com
- ramayac 14y ago
  Great tool, thanks for sharing!
basseq 14y ago
I've wanted something like this for going on two years. I even went so far as to start building it (wireframe: http://basseq.com/fun/epub/ http://basseq.com/fun/epub/; some epub publishing code written), too, but lost momentum back in September and it's been sitting in my project folder. So I'm excited someone took this further. I'll be playing with this more. Drop me a line if you're looking for more thoughts, feature ideas, or help.
- gt5050 14y ago
  Thanks ,sending you an email.
rebelnz 14y ago
Nicely done - I too was looking for pricing information but after reading comments here see that its still in development. Bookmarked - good luck!
shalintj 14y ago
Tried creating an ebook out of some of my old blog posts. Import from URL feature is pretty cool. Loved it. The frictionless way to try the app is also great. Bookmarking the site. Can I import a couple of my Dropbox docs directly?
KeithMaguire 14y ago
Looks great! One note - I happened to have my screen quite narrow when I opened it and as the menu-bar wrapped around it obscured the "Import Chapter from Url" button. The introductory guide pointed to where it thought the button should be but it was just highlighting a corner of the "Feedback and Support" button.
SwitchCase 14y ago
Finally out! Congrats!

58 points by gt5050 14y ago

Hello HN, I have been building Papyrus for the past few months. It is a simple web app that allows people to create ebooks easily. Would love to hear your feedback.

jvandenbroeck 14y ago
Cool looks very nice! I might use it for my new years' resolution to write something:p I would only be cautious because I'd be afraid of losing data (what if I write a whole book with your site & suddenly you go offline) & on the pdf version there 's also a white border around the book, it might be nice to be able to remove this or change it. For the rest it looks very awesome! Nice templates, easy to use etc=)
PagingCraig 14y ago
I really like the concept.

udayaprakash19 14y ago

looks great, is it going to be a free service ? i don't see any pricing page!

gt5050 14y ago
We are still building the product. We will add pricing plans soon.

devilankur18 14y ago

Seems like a nice utility for fast ebooks. Going to my bookmarks :)

ntayal 14y ago

Great !! All the best!

Boldewyn 14y ago

Firefox user here. What technology do you use to limit the page to WebKit only?

gt5050 14y ago
The editor is basicaly, a div with contenteditable. The implementation varies across Gecko and Webkit. We are working hard to add Firefox support.
- Boldewyn 14y ago
  Good to hear! I'm curious to see the result.

flexie 14y ago

Looks great. Nice feature that you can import content from any url. It's good that you can get started and see the product without signing in. Also a good guide.

gt5050 14y ago
Glad that you liked it.The guide was inspired from https://github.com/Gild/bootstrap-tour https://github.com/Gild/bootstrap-tour

Rayne 14y ago

This looks like a nice service. I could see myself using it. One thing I noticed on the front page is that you do strange things with punctuation. Examples: "Import the contents from the web . Convert your blog to a book in one click." Notice the space before the first period. "Papyrus lets you create books in pdf,epub,kindle formats." No spaces after commas and no 'and' before 'kindle'. Also, there is no space between the last period and "(Coming soon)" in the two rightmost feature sections.

gt5050 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Will fix it soon.
- gt5050 14y ago
  This has been fixed.

mikecane 14y ago

How does this differ from Pressbooks? http://pressbooks.com/ http://pressbooks.com/

gt5050 14y ago
Its different from Pressbooks 1)Has a cover designer built into the app 2)You could import content directly from anywhere on the web. (File import coming soon) 3)There are a set of themes,you could choose from.(Abilty to customize themes and a few more themes will be rolled out soon) 4)This might not be a differentiating factor,but we have tried to keep the editing process simple.

smountcastle 14y ago

The terms of service discuss a monthly subscription payment but I cannot find any fees listed anywhere on the website. I assume it's free for now and sometime in the future they'll announce pricing. What if I don't like the pricing model? Can I export my content and sell my book somewhere else? How easy is it to get my book out of Papyrus?

gt5050 14y ago
The books are available as epub,pdf and mobi as of now.All the content that you would create will be yours forever. You could always sell the books on any platform you like.(Like iBooks,Kindle,Nook). Example of a book created using Papyrus and being sold on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OU5E3K http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OU5E3K

Toshio 14y ago

I went straight into book editing mode, since I plan on publishing an ebook in the following months. The experience has been slightly frustrating. For instance, Shift+Enter when editing the contents of the title doesn't work as advertised. And when trying various things in desperation/frustration, a section of text popped up on me from nowhere, and I couldn't find a way to remove it. I'd say the product has a lot of promise, but you have a long way to go until you reach MVP stage.

gt5050 14y ago
Apologies that you had face issues while using Papyrus. I agree the product is still far from perfect. We are working hard to fix the bugs. Thanks again for trying it out.

saravanavijay 14y ago

Great app... Liked the import from url feature..

bpatrianakos 14y ago

It's black and white and red all over. Please tell me you deliberately chose that color scheme for that reason. You'd be my hero if you did.

gt5050 14y ago
To be honest, I am not a designer myself.Experimented with a few colors, this looked decent and pushed it.
- bpatrianakos 14y ago
  Oh no, I wasn't commenting on the design really. I think the design is just fine. I was referring to the joke that a comment above me refers to. "What's black and white and red all over" A newspaper. It's a play on words where "red" is supposed to be "read". I thought maybe you had that in mind when you chose the colors. It would be really clever and funny if you did. If anyone ever asks you that you should totally tell them yes. I bet they'd get a kick out of that.
akos 14y ago
Oh it is not so bad..but I agree it needs a little tweak. I really like the 'pinterest look' red buttons though!
- loumf 14y ago
  He's not saying it's bad -- he's saying that the color scheme is reminiscent of the old joke "What's black and white and red all over" ("A newspaper" as in "re[a]d all over") The joke also applies to ebooks if you do well, so could be a very appropriate one.

mtgx 14y ago

It should probably have a word counter. Also a spellchecker? Chrome seems to identify the spelling errors, but I don't know if all browsers have this.

gt5050 14y ago
Thanks. We will try and add these features soon.

prabhats 14y ago

Neat Design! Great UI Experience!! Really dig the "origin of species theme" and in app walk over. Really Usable Product. Would love to publish some books with this.

tanish2khn 14y ago

this is neat - all went good, until I incidentally pressed the 'clear canvas' button on cover page. no undo there? looking forward for more advance features - full screen, double page editing, collaborative editing and review comments ?

gt5050 14y ago
Thanks for trying out Papyrus. Will try and add these features soon.

rman666 14y ago

I have to admit that I prefer http://leanpub.com http://leanpub.com

gt5050 14y ago
Would like to know your thoughts. Your feedback would be very helpful
- ramayac 14y ago
  Why don't make a small comparison table vs other similar products to clearly show the benefits of using your product?
- milkman 14y ago
  Is your project similar to Leanpub? Is your goal to be an alternative to Leanpub? I'd love to see some competition in this space. It's a big space, a big market.

zrail 14y ago

I recently made a service named Docverter[1] that attacks this from the other end, where you write your book in Markdown or various other markup formats and produce ebook files via pandoc and calibre. It's way more do-it-yourself, but it could be a useful backend for this or other services. [1]: http://www.docverter.com http://www.docverter.com

ramayac 14y ago
Great tool, thanks for sharing!

basseq 14y ago

I've wanted something like this for going on two years. I even went so far as to start building it (wireframe: http://basseq.com/fun/epub/ http://basseq.com/fun/epub/; some epub publishing code written), too, but lost momentum back in September and it's been sitting in my project folder. So I'm excited someone took this further. I'll be playing with this more. Drop me a line if you're looking for more thoughts, feature ideas, or help.

gt5050 14y ago
Thanks ,sending you an email.

rebelnz 14y ago

Nicely done - I too was looking for pricing information but after reading comments here see that its still in development. Bookmarked - good luck!

shalintj 14y ago

Tried creating an ebook out of some of my old blog posts. Import from URL feature is pretty cool. Loved it. The frictionless way to try the app is also great. Bookmarking the site. Can I import a couple of my Dropbox docs directly?

KeithMaguire 14y ago

Looks great! One note - I happened to have my screen quite narrow when I opened it and as the menu-bar wrapped around it obscured the "Import Chapter from Url" button. The introductory guide pointed to where it thought the button should be but it was just highlighting a corner of the "Feedback and Support" button.

SwitchCase 14y ago

Finally out! Congrats!