Wow, this actually works perfectly. I searched for a theme and for a not very well known local writer I know, and got decent results.
Shared a tool with my book nerds immediately xD
Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
241–250 of 303 posts
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#242Worked really well. Thanks!
Thanks! Let me know if you have any feedback or criticisms I'd be happy to make improvements.
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#243I believe bookshop.org works someowhere along the same terms.
Btw, I'm not a native english speaker, and I somewhat understood your tool looks for the cheapest place to stay. Now I have a page of results full with Waikiki books.
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
>quality of paper you are extremely unlikely to find this as book metadata
I ordered books under the public domain on Amazon. At least 50% were printed on the cheapest paper and on Demand. Some were printed from scans were part of the text is missing and looked like photocopies. Just because the book is in the public domain does not mean I want a book that looks like a fanzine. Maybe it does not scale, I agree. This is why a curator is IMO important.
I agree the quality of Amazon self-published books can be terrible, notably recipe books. just as youtube can make anyone a tv star, or spotify a musician, Amazon self-publishing means anyone can be an author now
as for the metadata, that would be retrospectively impossible. your best chance would be to filter out Amazon as a publisher
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#245First few suggestions all sent me to sites that were down... also the search seems to not work great. I searched for: "Eat & Run Scott Jurek", and it couldn't find the book. But if I search for "Run eat run", it's the first suggestion, even though the search title is less correct and missing the author's name.
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#246First few suggestions all sent me to sites that were down... also the search seems to not work great. I searched for: "Eat & Run Scott Jurek", and it couldn't find the book. But if I search for "Run eat run", it's the first suggestion, even though the search title is less correct and missing the author's name.
Let me know if you have any trouble with the site!
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
>quality of paper you are extremely unlikely to find this as book metadata
You do get "Condition of book" which isn't quite the same thing but helpful along the same thread
I would take a coffee-stained, dust-clad, sepia-ridden second edition from a proper publisher over the 20gsm, toxic-inked, loosely-bound crap churned out by Amazon any day
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#248It doesn't ask for location at all, so it should really be called "find a cheap book in the USA".
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly, the cheapest and fastest way to get a book in Germany is most likely your neighborhood book store on the way back from work. (And if they don't have the book in store, they can order it for the next day.)
I find it hard to believe that local bookkstore catalog is nearly large enough.
They can get you everything through their wholesalers. Might take three days then, but there's a pretty tight-woven net.
Re: Show HN: I built a site that finds the cheapest place to buy a book
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can think of it as analogous to booking a flight. Do you want the cheapest flight with a 16 hour flight and 2 transfers with Ryanair? A lot of people don't mind paying a bit more for a direct flight and a complimentary chocolate (lot, swiss air), even if all are legal. Some websites even included an option to check as "worry-free" or similar to filter out these cheap options. Book equivalents could be quality of…
>quality of paper you are extremely unlikely to find this as book metadata
Online booksellers often denote "mass market" vs "trade" paperback which does potentially give you info on the quality of the paper.
"The paper quality is better as well, as most often they are printed on acid-free paper like a hardback book." - https://biblio.co.uk/book_collecting_terminology/trade-paper...
(I've found this to be relevant when sourcing physical copies of out of print books.)