Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

gtfsbook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

#21

Post by bambax »

spathon wrote: post #19
bambax wrote: post #11

Wow. I'm building an app for route planning / public transport in France, the first version of which was in full-JS and won a competition from RATP: http://data.ratp.fr/fr/actualites/article/finale-de-lopendat... We have now moved the route-planning part to a server in C++ but we want to move it back to the client using something like Xamarin/C#. Any thougths on this? Will definitely buy the book! (No Paypal, though?…

Cool, is it the general bus system in frans including the small local buses? I just started a creating a small app for the local bus in town built with NodeJS and AngularJS.

You mean France? ;-)

The version currently accessible only deals with the Paris subway, but in the very near future the new version will have all modes for Paris (Metro, Rer, Train, bus) and for a few other cities in France.

I don't know what you mean by "small local buses"?

What's the name/address of your app?

Re: Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

#22

Post by spathon »

bambax wrote: post #21
spathon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, is it the general bus system in frans including the small local buses? I just started a creating a small app for the local bus in town built with NodeJS and AngularJS.

You mean France? ;-) The version currently accessible only deals with the Paris subway, but in the very near future the new version will have all modes for Paris (Metro, Rer, Train, bus) and for a few other cities in France. I don't know what you mean by "small local buses"? What's the name/address of your app?

Yes, I'm currently living in Chamonix and I don't how the different bus/train systems are connected if they are? The app is not live yet I have just started.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

#29

Post by rmc »

qzervaas wrote: post #6
dougmccune wrote: post #5

Congrats on getting it out there! My only quick feedback is that 80 pages split into 20 chapters feels off to me. A 4 page "chapter" is something more akin to a "section" or some other unit. The sample PDF has the first two chapters, each of which are basically a page each (plus a large image). I'd recommend redefining your definition of "chapter" and restructuring into fewer/longer chapters. As it is it doesn't feel…

Thanks for the feedback - this had crossed my mind also, but I ultimately called them chapters as they are logical places to split the content. As far as the pricing goes, my rationale was to price based on the value it can provide and then take into account how niche the topic. Some of the content in there took me many many hours to figure out for myself (so thousands of dollars at an hourly rate). Offset this with…

You could split the book into many sections? With many chapters per section?

And your price is fine.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

#30

Post by qzervaas »

ekpyrotic wrote: post #26

Well done qzervaas! Please keep us updated on your success. I would be very interested to hear how many copies of this book you managed to sold - and your margins. I wonder whether writing in such a niche is profitable.

This post on HN generated about 2,700 views on the product page, and low double-digit sales.

Sales have so far covered my direct expenses (domain registration, cover design, copy editing), although I kept these costs as low as possible.

Profit margin can only be determined by the value I put on my time. It will take a little while to cover this but the GTFS spec isn't going anywhere so I'm confident this book will be relevant for quite some time.

Post reply on HN