World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Hi everyone, I’d really like to hear what you think about an idea I’m working on for starting a new books website.

Every year I find 2 or 3 new books I love so much I can’t stop talking about them and re-reading them. But each time I only found these favorites after spending many hours going through recommendations lists, reading ebook samples, starting books and not finishing them because they don’t grab me. (I should mention that because of my work I live in places where I can’t go to a bookstore or library to see what their staff recommend.)

So I want to make it easier to find really good book recommendations for the genres and styles that we like. There’s great book blogs, groups/forums (like this one!), reading lists, and social media pages out there, but I still feel there’s something missing. Something that could give you a quick and easy recommendation of a book that fits your preferences or mood and that has been loved by readers whose tastes are like yours.

What do you think – do you agree that a quicker way to get online recommendations of great books would be useful? What kind of book website would you find useful that you wish existed? One site I personally would find helpful is a “Rotten Tomatoes for books” that would bring critics’ and blogs’ book reviews together in one place. There’s a few sites like this already, but they don’t have many listings for the types of books I like to read.

It’s just a working idea for now, so I’d love to get your opinions on this!

I do agree that such a service is lacking. Even with movies, you can spend a long time scrolling through Netflix, IMDB, or Rotten Tomatoes looking for a movie to watch, when all you really want is to press a button and get a handful of recommendations.

Thinking out loud here (and working under the assumption that it's not you who are recommending the books, but rather an algorithm):

For this to work at scale, you would need to profile users the way Spotify does. I don't just mean by genre or even sub-genre, but rather a large list of attributes and characteristics that can help narrow down exactly what a user likes.

Then, you create an algorithm that finds the closest matches for a specific user. She can review the choices "Tinder style" until she finds a book she wants to read. If your book database is large enough, each user should have hundreds of matches, with new ones coming every day.

You could even connect to the Goodreads API to figure out which books the user has already read. You could perhaps even take advantage of the GR book database (although I'm not sure if this is possible).

One of the beauties of Spotify is that it can lead you to undiscovered music. Such a book service would have the power to do the same. Could be quite useful for self-published authors.


No idea how many people would use this. If you could identify enough people that have the problem "I would like to discover new books that I like, but I don't know how," then perhaps it's worth a try.

Iridescent wrote: "It's quite difficult to find sites that create great, useful recommendations. I think that only you really know what specific kind of books you want, and others are only looking into a glass window..."

Thanks, that's an interesting point. I know my book preferences also change depending on mood or situation and a site couldn't predict or know this without me giving it the input. Are there any sites that you think still do a decent job at recommendations for you?

Kent wrote: "I do agree that such a service is lacking. Even with movies, you can spend a long time scrolling through Netflix, IMDB, or Rotten Tomatoes looking for a movie to watch, when all you really want is ..."

Thanks for your great detailed thoughts, Kent - I'm inspired to spend more time on Spotify checking out how their discovery function works from a user experience perspective.

Connecting to Goodreads' API or something comparable would be key in building the user profiles as you mentioned. Otherwise it seems to me the Tinder approach would still be time-consuming for the user, which is what I'd like to avoid. (It's a lot less fun to rate books than photos of people...) Although perhaps that approach would require a time and thought investment from users only when inputting their preferences at first login, similar to how Goodreads works when you first sign up.

You're welcome.

Good luck!

I currently look at ratings and reviews for books on Goodreads. If your idea is to be able to search by genre, I don't see Goodreads doing that, unless I've missed something.

I have found a pretty good source for info on streaming movies and TV: decider.com. They do a pretty good job of giving you info on new offerings on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu.

Scout wrote: "I currently look at ratings and reviews for books on Goodreads. If your idea is to be able to search by genre, I don't see Goodreads doing that, unless I've missed something.

I have found a pretty..."

Thanks, Scout! Goodreads do let you browse recommendations by genre, but it can take some effort to find. If you go to https://www.goodreads.com/recommendat... and look in the right-hand column, you can click through recommendations for different genres.

I think what I'm aiming for with my (search for) an idea is to 1) give more specific recommendations using Netflix-style categories like "young adult novels set in the US with male protagonists" and 2) show what newspaper/magazine/blog critics' reviews of a book have been (in contrast to Goodreads, Amazon, etc. where book ratings come only from users of the site.)

I will look around decider.com for inspiration, thanks for mentioning it!

So, you're looking to give more specific recommendations for books to read and to show what newspaper/magazine/blog critics' reviews of a book have been. Sounds good, but a lot of work to compile all those reviews. Maybe that's what will make it worthwhile, if no one else is doing it.