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Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

notimeforbooks.com

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Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#31

I don't get what's the point on this. In my opinion a single page has barely content enough to develop anything interesting and because of it, it could be quite difficult to bring the context of the previous page every day you read a new one. I can't see how one can get hooked to read a book this way.

It's an experiment really. I probably should have included the origin story somewhere...

I was driving across the U.S. listening to an audio book about American History. Each chapter the author would mention influential books of the time. I was really impacted by the chapter on slavery and really wanted to read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Whilst I've got through plenty of classics, with a job and family, I thought it was unlikely I'd sit down and read it cover-to-cover.

As I thought about it more, I realized that even though I have a Kindle, I rarely read it, but I always read my email on the bus on the way to work. So... what if I just received a page per day? The whole site is basically an experiment to answer that question. I'm enjoying it so far, and now I'll find out if others do too!

So far I'm finding you actually do have enough context to keep track of things. Maybe not get hooked (but there's also a 'request another page' link in the email for those days with bad traffic)

:)

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#32

Page breaks are not necessarily good breaks in the story. Your sample image on your page shows that it broke in the middle of a sentence. I would think that would make this a difficult way to read a story. What feedback have you received about the effectiveness of "one page at a time"?

Indeed. The pagination algorithm is terribly naive. It's 2000 chars x the page you're up to. Breaking on a sentence or paragraph would be better. v1.1!

Feedback includes:

- Some books are terrible for this, such as ones with lots of footnotes! A page of footnotes is no fun - Some feature requests for things like only sending a page if you 'ack' the page you've read - Some folks like it

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#33
post #15

Now if only you could geofence this to restrooms all over the world so it will send you a page as a push notification...while you push. I'm calling it: Push to Read™️

Thanks for taking the time to come up with that. :p

My first job was at a supermarket. There was a big sign on the door saying "NO NEWSPAPERS". Memories.

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#34

I don't get what's the point on this. In my opinion a single page has barely content enough to develop anything interesting and because of it, it could be quite difficult to bring the context of the previous page every day you read a new one. I can't see how one can get hooked to read a book this way.

The point is people will sign up, see extra activity in their inbox and get some endorphins from that sweet illusion of productivity.

I thought the reward neurotransmitter was dopamine. Aren't endorphins for pain?

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#35

Implement this as an android app instead of email. Have a system where I can open a random page of a book in a genre as many times as I want for free, and I can continue reading from that page, but if I read through x continuous pages I have automatically bought the book (or a chapter of it) and it goes in my library.

There are apps for reading books. I like the random part and yeah you could make it pretty slick to convert to paid only if there's a decent level of engagement.

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#36

I don't get what's the point on this. In my opinion a single page has barely content enough to develop anything interesting and because of it, it could be quite difficult to bring the context of the previous page every day you read a new one. I can't see how one can get hooked to read a book this way.

It's an experiment really. I probably should have included the origin story somewhere... I was driving across the U.S. listening to an audio book about American History. Each chapter the author would mention influential books of the time. I was really impacted by the chapter on slavery and really wanted to read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Whilst I've got through plenty of classics, with a job and family, I thought it was unli…

Thank you for sharing this. I kniw I will find it useful.

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#37

Maker here. AMA! Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi! You should take a look at https://mjml.io/ (not a service I am associated with, simply one of the easiest to use) and make a responsive email template for your service. If you have a contact somewhere, I'd be willing to help you out with that if you need assistance.

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#38

Your thumbnail of the Iliad is of the Robert Fagles translation, which is not in the public domain. I'm not sure that many people would want MORE email. Years ago, I did something like this with Samuel Pepys' diary. I didn't get more than a week in and then I forgot. It was easy to get overwhelmed with the backlog and then I unsubscribed from the RSS feed. I'm not sure that people have "no time for books." There's pl…

Oh! Thanks for the note on the cover. Will change that. Don't want any nasty letters about copyright.

So, I agree re: the habit. I'm out of the habit, but I'm definitely in the habit of reading my email, so I guess the idea is bringing the content to where the people are.

Definitely not clear yet if this will be 'a thing'

Re: Show HN: Notimeforbooks.com – Read a book, one page at a time, in your inbox

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is people will sign up, see extra activity in their inbox and get some endorphins from that sweet illusion of productivity.

I thought the reward neurotransmitter was dopamine. Aren't endorphins for pain?

Yep, those endorphins will mask the sweet pain of having 87 pages unread and knowing that number will keep growing ceaselessly until it is just another unread copy of the book in your inbox.
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