The arc of every book-reading software engineer is to attempt a goodreads alternative.
They're always nice, and always have an achilles heel: the moat of kindle integration. Goodreads is unassailable.
Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
121–130 of 214 posts
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#122Tech Stack Backend: Elixir & Phoenix Database: PostgreSQL with Supabase (originally CockroachDB, big mistake) Auth: Supabase Frontend: Next.js UI Components: shadcn GraphQL API: Absinthe Hosting: Fly.io (Phoenix) + Vercel (Next.js) Storage: Cloudflare R2 + CDN
Does Phoenix have auth? Any reason you chose supa over phoenix? And do you store user info (reviews+stuff) in phoenix and just reference it with the supa uuids or do you store user generated info on their own in supa?
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#123The landing page is mostly filled with sci-fi. I know it's what's popular on the site and what's reviewed recently but it's sending the wrong message that the site is exclusively for sci-fi. Most readers don't read sci-fi, and readers who read sci-fi tend to mostly read sci-fi, so the average reader would think the site is not for them.
In harsher words: women don't read sci-fi, and are your target audience. Make sure your landing page surfaces things other than sci-fi and fantasy, or you'll never grow past that niche.
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#124> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.
> Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? I rate for myself, and not others. And for over 20 years I've used a 10 point system. 10 = Easily amongst my favorite 9 = Awesome, but not in all time favorites 8 = Really liked it, and would recommend 7 = Liked it, was worth my time, but not so much that I would happily recommend to others 6 = Liked it, but wasn't worth…
you use a 7 point system
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#125The landing page is mostly filled with sci-fi. I know it's what's popular on the site and what's reviewed recently but it's sending the wrong message that the site is exclusively for sci-fi. Most readers don't read sci-fi, and readers who read sci-fi tend to mostly read sci-fi, so the average reader would think the site is not for them. In harsher words: women don't read sci-fi, and are your target audience. Make sur…
“Women don’t read sci-fi”?
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#126> UI still looks like it's from 2005
I don't mind this at all, but I do mind the extremely slow servers backing the site. It's overloaded, either through inadequate hardware or poor software or both.
> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars)
10 star rating is an anti-feature. I just don't have that level of granularity in how I feel about books. The only real feature you need is data migration / portability -- if I can't get my extensive records out of Goodreads, there's no point.
> Import your library from Goodreads/StoryGraph
So that's good. Does it include ratings? Can you continue to sync over time or is it a one-shot?
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#127The landing page is mostly filled with sci-fi. I know it's what's popular on the site and what's reviewed recently but it's sending the wrong message that the site is exclusively for sci-fi. Most readers don't read sci-fi, and readers who read sci-fi tend to mostly read sci-fi, so the average reader would think the site is not for them. In harsher words: women don't read sci-fi, and are your target audience. Make sur…
You might need to meet more women
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#128> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.
I completely agree. I've never read a 1-star (to me) book because that implies it's unreadable, and anything good enough to keep my attention room is generally 4-stars and rarely 5-stars. I bet if I look at my Goodreads it's 60% 4s, 30% 3s, and 10% 5s
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#129[deleted]
Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative
#130I generally ignore 1 and 5 stars on Amazon or anything without a comment or username.
Interesting to see the deep tagging system as the categorizations for books are tricky (as an author I know this from a few failed attempts to pigeon hole my first book in kindle) so say If an amazing romance book was accidentally categorized as an adventure or Sci-Fi as it had a bit of action or future tech in it, it would likely get 1 star from the romance genre readers, and vice versa if it was categorized as Sci-Fi or adventure. It is why you rarely get well rated cross-overs. A better category manager would be good for readers.