Should I Build It Should I Build It
09 Jul 2025
Books

A place where you can read books totally free and reliable

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Freemium

People love using similar products but resist paying. You’ll need to either find who will pay or create additional value that’s worth paying for.

Should You Build It?

Build but think about differentiation and monetization.

Your are here

You're entering a crowded space, as indicated by the 11 similar products we found. This gives us high confidence in our assessment, but it also means there's significant competition. The average comment count of 8 suggests a decent level of engagement in this space. Given your idea of a free and reliable book platform, you're squarely in the 'Freemium' category. This means many users are interested in the idea, but might be resistant to paying. The trick will be figuring out how to sustainably offer free content while also creating a compelling reason for users to upgrade or support the platform. Focus on what can differentiate you to stand out from the other competitors and the rest of the market, even if that means pivoting.

Recommendations

  1. First, deeply analyze which users derive the most value from free access to books. Is it students, casual readers, or researchers? Understanding your core free user will help tailor premium offerings that truly resonate. If you want to avoid the long scrolling format that is the source of criticism from similar products, you can categorize books or summaries by user type.
  2. Next, brainstorm premium features that cater to these high-value free users. This could include ad-free access, exclusive content, advanced search functionalities, or the ability to download books for offline reading. Make the upgrade a natural extension of their existing usage. Take inspiration from Myreader AI and focus on B2B application for potential monetization.
  3. Explore team-based pricing models if your platform can be used collaboratively. For instance, a book club or a research group might be willing to pay for shared access and collaborative tools. This approach can unlock a higher willingness to pay compared to individual users. Users in similar platforms suggested social features, so you may want to incorporate those.
  4. Offer personalized help or consulting services related to the books on your platform. This could involve expert-led discussions, study guides, or even personalized reading recommendations. This high-touch approach can justify a premium price point, especially for users seeking deeper engagement with the content.
  5. Experiment with different pricing strategies on smaller user groups. A/B test various price points, feature bundles, and subscription models to identify the most effective approach. Pay close attention to conversion rates and user feedback to refine your pricing strategy based on real-world data.
  6. Address concerns about book rights and content quality head-on. Clearly outline your process for acquiring and curating content, and emphasize your commitment to accuracy and legality. Transparency builds trust and mitigates potential criticism.
  7. Consider incorporating AI-powered features, such as AI summaries (like SumReads), personalized recommendations, or AI-driven question answering (BookSlice) to enhance the user experience and provide additional value. However, be mindful of accuracy and potential biases in AI-generated content.
  8. Given the positive reception to platforms that combine reading and listening (Fabuly), explore integrating audio features to cater to users who prefer to consume content while multitasking. This could include text-to-speech functionality or partnerships with audiobook providers.

Questions

  1. Given the freemium model, what specific types of content (e.g., genre, author, subject matter) will you initially focus on to attract a critical mass of users and establish a strong foundation for your platform?
  2. Considering the importance of content quality and legal rights, how will you ensure that the books available on your platform are legitimately sourced and free from copyright infringement, and what measures will you implement to maintain a high standard of accuracy and editorial integrity?
  3. With multiple competitors in the freemium book space, what innovative features or unique selling points will you offer to differentiate your platform and attract users who are already served by existing solutions, and how will you communicate these advantages effectively to your target audience?

Your are here

You're entering a crowded space, as indicated by the 11 similar products we found. This gives us high confidence in our assessment, but it also means there's significant competition. The average comment count of 8 suggests a decent level of engagement in this space. Given your idea of a free and reliable book platform, you're squarely in the 'Freemium' category. This means many users are interested in the idea, but might be resistant to paying. The trick will be figuring out how to sustainably offer free content while also creating a compelling reason for users to upgrade or support the platform. Focus on what can differentiate you to stand out from the other competitors and the rest of the market, even if that means pivoting.

Recommendations

  1. First, deeply analyze which users derive the most value from free access to books. Is it students, casual readers, or researchers? Understanding your core free user will help tailor premium offerings that truly resonate. If you want to avoid the long scrolling format that is the source of criticism from similar products, you can categorize books or summaries by user type.
  2. Next, brainstorm premium features that cater to these high-value free users. This could include ad-free access, exclusive content, advanced search functionalities, or the ability to download books for offline reading. Make the upgrade a natural extension of their existing usage. Take inspiration from Myreader AI and focus on B2B application for potential monetization.
  3. Explore team-based pricing models if your platform can be used collaboratively. For instance, a book club or a research group might be willing to pay for shared access and collaborative tools. This approach can unlock a higher willingness to pay compared to individual users. Users in similar platforms suggested social features, so you may want to incorporate those.
  4. Offer personalized help or consulting services related to the books on your platform. This could involve expert-led discussions, study guides, or even personalized reading recommendations. This high-touch approach can justify a premium price point, especially for users seeking deeper engagement with the content.
  5. Experiment with different pricing strategies on smaller user groups. A/B test various price points, feature bundles, and subscription models to identify the most effective approach. Pay close attention to conversion rates and user feedback to refine your pricing strategy based on real-world data.
  6. Address concerns about book rights and content quality head-on. Clearly outline your process for acquiring and curating content, and emphasize your commitment to accuracy and legality. Transparency builds trust and mitigates potential criticism.
  7. Consider incorporating AI-powered features, such as AI summaries (like SumReads), personalized recommendations, or AI-driven question answering (BookSlice) to enhance the user experience and provide additional value. However, be mindful of accuracy and potential biases in AI-generated content.
  8. Given the positive reception to platforms that combine reading and listening (Fabuly), explore integrating audio features to cater to users who prefer to consume content while multitasking. This could include text-to-speech functionality or partnerships with audiobook providers.

Questions

  1. Given the freemium model, what specific types of content (e.g., genre, author, subject matter) will you initially focus on to attract a critical mass of users and establish a strong foundation for your platform?
  2. Considering the importance of content quality and legal rights, how will you ensure that the books available on your platform are legitimately sourced and free from copyright infringement, and what measures will you implement to maintain a high standard of accuracy and editorial integrity?
  3. With multiple competitors in the freemium book space, what innovative features or unique selling points will you offer to differentiate your platform and attract users who are already served by existing solutions, and how will you communicate these advantages effectively to your target audience?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 11
  • Engagement: Medium
    • Average number of comments: 8
  • Net use signal: 29.8%
    • Positive use signal: 29.8%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.9%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.9%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

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I Built Bibliou – A Social Platform for Book Lovers

01 Dec 2024 Books

Hey Hacker News!I’m excited to introduce Bibliou – a new social platform for book lovers! Whether you're an avid reader, aspiring author, or just enjoy exploring ideas through literature, Bibliou has something for you.With Bibliou, you can:Upload your own stories, novels, or poems and share them with the community. Discover books and writings from other users – uncover hidden literary gems! Follow authors, readers, and creators you enjoy – build your own literary network. Create reading lists, leave reviews, and participate in discussions within vibrant forums. Get personalized book recommendations to help you find your next favorite read. Why Bibliou? Unlike traditional book apps, Bibliou is a multifunctional platform – your personal bookshelf, a space to publish your work, a social hub to connect with other readers and authors, and more. No need to juggle multiple platforms. Bibliou brings everything together in one place!Whether you’re an indie author looking to grow a fanbase or a casual reader searching for something new, Bibliou simplifies connecting and sharing stories.We’re just getting started and would love to hear your feedback! Check it out, explore, and help us shape the future of reading and writing online.Join the conversation – the literary world is waiting!

Users appreciate the domain name and are open to providing feedback.

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I built Bibliou – a platform for book lovers to read, share and connect

13 Oct 2024 Books

After 5 months of coding and tweaking, I’m excited to introduce Bibliou, a social media platform dedicated to book enthusiasts. With Bibliou, you can:-Read and upload books-Share what you've read and discover new reads from others-Connect with fellow book lovers, make friends, and see what they’re reading-Download books from the communityIt's a place where bookworms can geek out about their favorite reads, follow others’ reading journeys, and build meaningful connections over shared literary interests.I’d love to get feedback on the platform, and if you’re into books, feel free to check it out!

Created Bibliou for book lovers to share experiences.

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Bookov - Read books & build a library that will truly be yours

12 Jun 2024 Books eBook Reader

Obsidian for books. A platform for book lovers who value their collections. One that will make you the owner of your personal book collection. Search & add books with no buying or uploading. Import files to read. Free to use.

The app launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with users praising its sleek design, user-friendliness, and suitability for book lovers. Key features highlighted include easy book searching, adding, importing, and the ability to create private collections with local storage. Many congratulated the Bookov team and expressed excitement for the launch, with some inquiring about the business plan, book catalog diversity, and future web3 integration. Users are eager to use the app and have joined the waitlist.

Users find the long scrolling format annoying when searching for specific ebooks on the platform. This makes it difficult to browse and locate desired content efficiently.

valda_bay

Being a bookworm, I now ended up with many e-books scattered around my smartphone. Looking something up means long scrolling, which is quite annoying! It would be great to have an app that'll help organize all this clutter 😄 Will it have a feature to allow you to add your own file if the book is not in the search results?

natalie_ermishina

Wow, great solution, gonna definitely offer this option to our clients and readers as well. Wish you just luck with the app!

daler

Congratulations! It looks cool, I'll be waiting for the launch!

demmidoow

That's great! I'm already waiting for the release and want to start using it

ikalimullin

Impressive! Building a platform for book lovers is a fantastic idea. Looking forward to seeing it in action! 🚀

vadimicus

I like the idea of taking care of users' private collections. It looks promising to use some web3 backend in the future. Happy launch

copyfrog

Congratulations to the team on the launch! The ability to search and add books without needing to buy or upload them, along with the option to import files for reading, makes it incredibly user-friendly. Game-changer for readers!

yura_turivny

Wow. That’s what I’m looking for for long time! Thnx for developing 🤌🙏

al_sku

Nice! Joined tha waitlist!

srtlyan

I just want to say that this project is awesome! The idea of a reading app where books are stored locally on your device is fantastic. It gives users total independence and peace of mind knowing their library is always with them, no matter what. I've had issues losing access to my content before, so I really appreciate what you’re doing here. This is such a cool solution that can save a lot of people from similar problems. Wishing you guys huge success and can't wait to try out your product!

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SumReads - Free book summaries

21 Jun 2024 Productivity Tech

Unlike other platforms that charge hefty fees, Sumreads is committed to providing you with valuable content at no cost. It’s a breath of fresh air in a world where knowledge often comes with a price tag.

The Product Hunt launch received positive feedback, with users praising the free access to quality book summaries as a valuable alternative to expensive platforms. Users congratulated the launch and expressed excitement. Suggestions included adding audio summaries and a feature for tracking user requests. Concerns were raised about potential spelling errors and empty links. One user inquired about book rights, while another implied concern about the platform being hastily made.

Users question the legality and overall quality of SumReads, citing spelling errors and empty links as evidence of poor execution. There are also concerns about the book selection process, the potential for user-generated content, and how SumReads ensures the accuracy and quality of its summaries compared to alternatives like ChatGPT. The effort put into the project is also questioned.

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Myreader AI - Let an AI read books for you

03 Jul 2023 Artificial Intelligence Books Productivity

Chat with a book, or entire Library, or group of books, and jump to exact page in book that talks about it to read more! You can upload up to 20,000 pages and all your books stay in cloud to reference anytime.

Myreader.ai's Product Hunt launch garnered positive feedback, with users praising its ability to work with multiple documents and concise information. Many congratulated the team on the launch and wished them success. Users see potential in its B2B applications and differentiating factors like unlimited document AI. The tool is considered revolutionary for interacting with books, offering convenience and tailored insights, even working with Arabic books. Some users inquired about pricing, accuracy, and features like audio download and large context window handling. Suggestions included one-time payment options and submitting to AI directories for more exposure.

Users criticized the lack of upfront pricing information and preference for a one-time payment option over a subscription model. A free plan's chat feature was reported to be inaccurate, providing excessive information. Additionally, an unrelated comment was made about similarities between arguments used by some atheists and Islamic hardliners.

crypto_fiend

In my position I have to be constantly learning with what seems like yearly changes. Looking into purchasing the pro plan if the following can be answered: Is the chat feature like a GPT? Will it give quick answers with references to where on the pdf it located the answer? in the free plan (for testing) it was not to accurate, gave to much information and had to sort through a few pages to locate where exactly it was located. But in hopes it does get better. As for the reading aspect, looks like its 100% accurate, great for reading along docs for test taking. Can the audio files, as in the entire book be downloaded? Thanks for any feedback.

marc_mengler

I wish I had this a few years ago when I was still a researcher in machine learning. It would have saved me so much time. This product just had to happen!

navinpeiris

Great idea! It’s so frustrating trying to find a concept or a piece of text that you remember reading in one of these books, but can’t recollect exactly where. Looking forward to trying this out! Congrats on the launch!

andrei_costea2

Awesome! There are just too many pages on the internet nowadays, so this comes in really handy. Congrats on the launch!

constance_li

This is such an amazing tool. I was previously using the ChatGPT plugins to read PDF's, but they are limited to < 300 pages. I haven't run into any page limits with myreader.ai so far! I like that I can reference the excerpt that the AI pulled to compose the answer as well. Great for research and citations!

patpijanowski

A groundbreaking tool that revolutionizes the way we engage with books. The ability to interact with an entire library and access specific content instantly is a game-changer for avid readers and researchers. The cloud-based storage feature further enhances accessibility and convenience.

katka_sabo

I used myreader.ai to get the biggest insights (relevant for the organization I am working with) from 13 long research papers our group identified as potentially relevant. This tailor-made insights wouldn't have been possible without this product, love it so much.

medo_hamdani

It also work on book that written in Arabic. It would be great if there is a one time payment!

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BookSlice - Gamified book reader for busy people

15 Jun 2024 Artificial Intelligence Books Productivity

Turn reading into a fun habit with goal-setting, habit stacking, streaks, and AI-powered assistance. Start your reading adventure today! 🎉

BookSlice is receiving positive feedback for its innovative approach to making reading more accessible and habitual through gamification and habit stacking. Users appreciate the bite-sized reading chunks and focus-enhancing AI. Suggestions include social features, calendar integration, and importing books from personal resources. A concern was raised regarding the security of a download link requesting credit card information. Early adopters and new users alike express excitement and gratitude for the tool, praising its convenience and the creativity of the solution.

Users expressed concerns regarding a potentially insecure download link requesting credit card information. Some users desired reading habit tracking features similar to phone screen time monitoring. Questions were raised about the chunk size and the book selection process. There were requests for AI assistance to answer questions related to the reading material.

chandula

This is so good! I can see myself using this. Since there's an AI element going on, I would suggest adding a 'read next' or a 'suggest a book' feature involving AI, including GoodReads ratings and a link to download the epub or to download automatically. So I just have to search or get recommended a book, and start reading straight up! Another feature idea would be to have separate chats for each book, I read multiple books at a time and that'll help a lot.

crystal_low

I'm an early adopter of BookSlice (before it was launched here) and have been maintaining a streak of over 2 weeks with much ease. I think it achieves its goals of helping busy people read spectacularly. I tend to spend those few moments of idle time I have on social media and messaging platforms, but BookSlice has taken much of my attention these days. My favourite feature is the in-built AI. When I read, I often end up Googling unfamiliar terms or events, but that would lead me down a rabbit hole that I didn't plan to go down. With the AI assistance, I can get the answers in the same window, and that helps a lot with remaining focused and removing distractions. The bite-sized paragraphs also really help with overcoming the inertia of reading. If I can read text messages from my friends, I can read these short paragraphs from BookSlice too. I foresee myself using this bot long-term. Looking forward to what more it can do! (I would love to see how my reading habits have changed over time. Something like the screen time function on our phones but for reading.)

kyrylosilin

This sounds like a fantastic tool for busy people who want to read more. The gamification and habit stacking features are especially intriguing. - How does BookSlice determine the size of the text chunks it sends? - Can users choose specific books, or does the bot recommend books based on user preferences? Looking forward to trying out the free trial and seeing how it enhances my reading habits! P.S. Building a Telegram product myself, I love new Telegram products! ❤️

zeng

Wow. This is the tool I need!

jonathan_dennis

Big fan of the idea! There is a similar app that gamifies fitness which I am sure you could bounce ideas off as well. I've been using GoodReads for a while, and like the social aspect of it as well as building out my own library. Would this be something that you could support? Also, it would be cool if it linked into calendars to schedule time for me to read based on my commitments, so I get the notification as well as it in my schedule. Other than that congrats on the launch!

mayoyo25

As an avid reader always looking for ways to squeeze in more reading time, I love the idea of gamifying and habit-stacking the experience through BookSlice. What I have been missing si that AI-powered assistance to answer questions about what am currently reading. Wishing you guys tons of success with this launch! Signed up for that free trial.

chipcasino

Awesome tool, gonna try this right now! Thanks

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Fabuly - Free App—Read While Listening—Classic Books & Short Stories.

17 Aug 2024 Android Books eBook Reader

Free Books & Short Stories With High quality audio. Audio & Text Synchronized: Read While Listening (like Kindle Immersion Reading). Switch Between Reading and Listening (e.g. Read in the Train, Continue by Listening While Cooking).

Fabuly's Product Hunt launch received positive feedback for its combination of audiobooks with synchronized text, making classic literature accessible and enjoyable for multitasking readers. Users appreciate the innovative approach to reading and listening, highlighting enhanced accessibility and reading enjoyment. There's excitement surrounding the app's potential. Questions were raised about text-to-speech quality and future language support, indicating interest in further development.

robertthomas2

This is an amazing initiative, @joseph_lange ! The synchronization of text and audio sounds like a game changer for reading on-the-go. I can totally relate to your experience in Japan—carrying heavy books is a hassle. Fabuly's approach to curate high-quality public domain works is impressive. Excited to try it out! Keep up the great work!

christopherdavidanderson

This looks really promising, @joseph_lange ! The idea of combining high-quality audiobooks with synchronized text is a game-changer, especially for busy readers like me who want to enjoy books while multitasking. The editorial selection sounds impressive too; it's great to hear that you're curating a quality library instead of relying solely on user-generated content. Sounds like Fabuly could fill a much-needed gap in the current landscape—particularly for those of us traveling or on the go. Can't wait to dive in and see how it performs! Keep up the fantastic work!

quantummuse

I have been playing a bit with the app, and… Finally, an application that brings classic literature into the 21st century! No ads, a clean interface, and the best of the public domain packaged in the nicest possible way. As a Frenchman learning English, it is also a great way to improve your listening skills. Anyway, all the best for the next steps and congratulations on the lunch! I can hardly wait to see your library grow 🚀✨

zanereed596

This sounds like an amazing project, Joseph! The idea of combining audio and text is brilliant, especially for on-the-go reading. Can't wait to try Fabuly! Upvoted!

star_boat

Congrats on launching Fabuly, @joseph_lange ! This sounds like a fantastic solution for book lovers. The combo of reading and listening is a game changer! Can’t wait to try it out! 📚

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