
Show HN: Bubblin – Bandcamp for books - marvindanig
https://bubblin.io
======
stakhanov
I couldn't find any info on your page regarding the royalties model that
you're going to use. How much of a cut are you going to take? Is it going to
be closer to amazon's 70% or closer to bandcamp's 15%?

Why do you have the restriction to original work and public domain work "with
your own take"? For me, personally, that's a bit disappointing, since I work
largely on digital reproductions of public domain work leaving it "as is".

One of my leisure time pursuits is to find interesting old books on cavalry,
making them into high-quality reflowable e-books. It's a lot of work. I
sometimes have to find multiple originals in libraries and antiquarian
bookstores if there isn't a single original available in a good enough
condition. Then I type them in multiple times to make sure there are no typos.
I scan & vectorize the graphics. Then I produce nice reflowable EPUBs and
ensure compatibility with a wide range of hardware. That kind of thing is hard
work, and yet that sort of work is probably not protectable by copyright. It's
been a personal frustration of mine that platforms for bookselling are often
so uninviting towards that kind of content. -- It would be pretty easy for me
to take a work like that and make it into an edition "with commentary", but,
honestly, I'd much rather allow these works to shine in their original glory.

~~~
kevingrahl
> One of my leisure time pursuits is to find interesting old books on cavalry,
> making them into high-quality reflowable e-books.

That’s so cool! Is there any chance you’re willing to share those epub’s? I’m
a private Archivist/Data Hoarder and would love to get my hands on those files
just to keep them safe.

Feel free to contact me, my email is on my profile.

~~~
stakhanov
I'll definitely share the EPUBs. My current plan is roughly as follows:

I'll create a Facebook group to serve as a "reading club" and publish the
fulltext in a bit-by-bit fashion to the group as Facebook documents, maybe
also to Bubblin at zero price. I like the idea of being able to link directly
to individual pages within the Bubblin-based ebook. The usefulness of this
feature depends a bit on how good the previews look that Facebook would end up
extracting for those links. For people who want a more proper book experience
there will be a ZIP file available for download with a printable PDF and an
EPUB. I'll make that bundle available for purchase using a service similar to
gumtree but better geared for the German market.

My hope would be that, through these purchases, I can recoup some of the costs
that went into the production of those works. After the reading club is
through, or when I've made enough money to break even, whichever comes first,
I'll upload the EPUB for free to Amazon, project gutenberg, archive.org,
wikisource, wikimedia commons, and whatever other platform I can think of.
I'll also upload the scanned source material to achive.org. I can send it to
you as well, if you'd like, once I get to that stage.

The baseline strategy here would be to just upload to Kindle Direct Publishing
and put a price tag on it. But if I did that, then Amazon would stand to
benefit from my efforts more than either I or the general public would, and it
would probably not get the material as much circulation. So that's what I'm
trying to avoid by doing things this way.

~~~
halfjew22
I’ve been designing a new business model that is a positive sum game for all
players.

I’m sick of these rent seeking fee grabbing antiquated ideas prevailing just
because “that’s how it’s always been done”

I truly respect your efforts and wouldn’t comment here if I didn’t think I had
a way to improve that process for you. Please email me if you’re interested in
hearing more. Email is username at gmail.

Looking forward to hopefully hearing from you.

------
deng
From a user's perspective: The main point of Bandcamp is that you actually own
what you buy. No DRM, no additional charge for lossless, properly tagged,
including cover art, everything in a perfectly normal ZIP anybody can use and
nobody can take away from you again. That is why Bandcamp was so refreshing
when it started, and that is why I buy my music there whenever possible. As
far as I can see, this site is nothing like that.

~~~
thinkmassive
Exactly, and LeanPub already covers the analogous use case for books fairly
well.

------
silveroriole
I read all the time on my iPad. Sorry for the negative feedback, but I don’t
think I would use this. If there’s no pdf/ePub download that I can put into a
reader of my choice, see alongside my other downloaded books, take anywhere
with me, categorise, highlight, bookmark, skip around in, etc, then it’s not
for me, and it’s not like Bandcamp. On the iPad there is no friction with
downloading such files to a reader app - it’s one or two clicks - so I’m not
sure why that is the reason given for no providing it.

Also, the font is simply gigantic, I felt like I was back in primary school! I
couldn’t discover how to resize it, if that is possible.

~~~
marvindanig
Why do you need to download explicitly when your book is already offline using
a service-worker? Serious question.

~~~
silveroriole
Because my reading apps can do more than the website’s reader can. Because
then I own the file and the website cannot simply take it down. Because of all
the reasons I listed originally.

Basically - is this site selling itself as Bandcamp for books, which means
‘hardcore’ readers can discover new and interesting ‘indie’ books and do what
they want with them in whatever format they want, or is it selling itself as a
fancy reading app with animations and things (which imo appeals more to casual
readers/children, and the giant font also gives off that impression)? It is
trying to be both - or is clearly the latter but has been posted here as the
former - and that seems conflicted. You simply can’t make me believe that I am
MORE free by being locked into one reading app vs downloading a file! :)

~~~
marvindanig
> my reading apps can do more…

What are the top three features on an app that you find so unique and useful
that web can't offer it?

~~~
halfjew22
I’ve got to commend you for actively responding to feedback in an unbiased
way.

Some seem not to gel with the wording you’ve used for your website, but you’ve
put lots of work in and your passion and honesty show through the feedback and
responses you’re providing.

Bravo.

------
faebser
I am a huge fan of bandcamp, I buy most of my music because I can download the
FLAC files and put them on my streaming server. I was rather disappointed that
instead of providing polished, DRM free ebook files but went with a web based
version that I cannot transfer to my ebook reader.

I would be more than happy to not only pay the authors but also for the work
that you guys do by providing nice clean files.

There is another small thing that bugs me. Why did you choose to emulate books
in your reader even down to turning pages? IMHO this is rather unnecessary,
just presenting the book like a long article with well done typography would
have been enough. (the reason, again IMHO, that ebook readers have virtual
pages is that their displays are to slow to have smooth scroll)

~~~
marvindanig
I'd never read Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban like an article or a PDF
file. No one will. This way I can… at least my nephew will.

We've discussed this subject at length over here:

[https://bubblin.io/concerns](https://bubblin.io/concerns)

Thanks!

~~~
all2
I read a little of what you link. I have a concern: you are ignoring the
current state of the market and hoping your new standard will be adopted. I
have an eInk reader that is about 10 years old. It is serviceable. I put most
of my eBooks on that for reading.

I won't consider a service that doesn't have the epub format. The first thing
I do (before buying an eBook anywhere) is check to see if I can get it on my
e-reader. I already have to jump through hoops to get my Amazon purchases onto
it.

I won't use your service because it doesn't have what I need. And there are
many people like me.

------
voxl
The entire point of bandcamp, for me, is FLAC downloads.

There was already a comment about how there aren't epub downloads. So this is
hardly the "Bandcamp for books." More like the "Spotify for books" I would
think.

~~~
marvindanig
> Spotify for books

Interesting. I think we're drawing from both Spotify and Bandcamp here
somewhat. Overall, since there are differences between how/why we consume
music vs. how and what we do with books so there will be differences in final
implementation of Bubblin eventually and we might just sit closer to Spotify
then.

We had to start somewhere, and Bandcamp for Books wasn't a bad place to begin
with.

------
baroffoos
Had a read of the FAQ and it doesn't seem like its for me. I prefer my books
as epub so they work nicely on my ereader. I also require that they be able to
be downloaded as files so I can store them on my hdd and they are safely
archived so if the original seller pulls them offline or the website shuts
down I will always have access to them.

This services feels more like a longer form blog platform tbh but good luck
and I hope others find use in it.

~~~
sonicaa
> prefer my books as epub so they work nicely on my ereader. I also require
> that they be able to be downloaded as files

hi Sonica, CTO & cofounder here.

i'm sure there are a number of nuggets in the epub standard to pick up! it's
just that it is too much friction for people to download a file, navigate to
the file on the disk and wait for it to open before they can start reading the
book.

we do have a dry no-javascript no-frills mode for books on Bubblin right now,
if that helps. we've written an essay [1] discussing some of these concerns
and will be happy to engage/implement in a more accommodating fashion.

[1] [https://bubblin.io/concerns](https://bubblin.io/concerns)

~~~
kungtotte
Really? People who are about to spend a good amount of hours reading a book
thinks it's a bother to wait two minutes for a file to download? Using any
kind of modern system you'll have a standard download location and a "Open
with..." dialog with the default app for a given file type selected, and most
epub-capable apps will remember the recently used files so you don't have to.

This smells more like a "we don't want to" instead of "we can't"...

~~~
icebraining
Seem reasonable to me. Most people probably don't have an ebook reader
installed, and would struggle to find one and install it. The site could point
to one, but that essentially means they become responsible for supporting it.

Personally, I'd also prefer an epub, but I'm not the average user.

~~~
ndnxhs
The average user prefers something that works on an ereader.

~~~
icebraining
I don't think that's true, few people read ebooks in ereaders:
[http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/01/book-
reading-2016/pi_2...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/01/book-
reading-2016/pi_2016-09-01_book-reading_0-04/)

~~~
deng
Maybe. But the people who have dedicated ereaders are usually those who read a
lot and are passionate about quality ebooks. I'm sick of buying ebooks at
Amazon, jumping through hoops only to get it onto my Kobo, and then find it
has weird style sheets and plain wrong formatting, which I then have to fix
via Calibre. This is just nuts. Combine this with the fact that only a tiny
fraction of what I've paid went to the author, I would _love_ if there was
something like "Bandcamp for ebooks". I think this might very well work out,
and I also think that many authors would jump onto this.

------
bpicolo
> Welcome to Bandcamp of books, comics and magazines!

I'd be wary of using that phrase directly on your home page. That's definitely
making use a of trademark you don't own - seems like a quick path to some
legal trouble with bandcamp?

------
JanSt
Looks nice :-) What are you planning for the future? I'd like to take a lot of
notes and get a nice overview for future review / a lot of learning features.

Any thoughts on adding discussions?

I'd also like you to add a lot of essays ;-)

Bug report: I verified my email, but it still tells me to do so. (Using on
Macbook, validated from iPhone, so different device)

~~~
marvindanig
Discussions are our next milestone, so yes! I think it will be good to share
our roadmap somewhere on the site. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

------
triptych
It all looks really cool but can you please clarify 1) licensing -- all your
git projects say "license TBD" for many months. 2) clarify the selling options
- 3) If I want to publish a book on my own site, why do I need to authenticate
to bubblin.io 4) what is your accessibility story?

------
asyncanup
I love the ES6 book, crisp and clear

The ui seems considered and polished, works good on mobile for me

------
drannex
Quick UI/UX note: You should remove the border around the titles until you
hover over them, way more pleasing on the eye and less "in your face"!

------
rafael-rinaldi
I'm glad to see you're using my code for the book hover states:
[https://codepen.io/rafaelrinaldi/pen/LEYyKZ](https://codepen.io/rafaelrinaldi/pen/LEYyKZ)

If possible can you just mention it somewhere, or just buy me a coffee
instead: [https://buymeacoff.ee/rinaldi](https://buymeacoff.ee/rinaldi)

~~~
sonicaa
I've added Codepen's MIT License [0] to your name to credit you correctly at
the right spot on our CSS. New build will be rolled out in a couple of hours
so kindly check back again.

If however you're still uncomfortable about us using this experiment without a
coffee, do let me know and we'll remove it from Bubblin completely. Just
kidding, we'll sponsor you a coffee as well ;-)

[0]
[https://blog.codepen.io/legal/licensing/](https://blog.codepen.io/legal/licensing/)

~~~
rafael-rinaldi
Doesn’t bother me at all I am genuinely happy to see it being used.

Good luck with the product.

------
qwerty456127
How do I find any new books there? I don't mind the classics yet I feel
curious about what do indie writers write today.

------
rcavezza
What does "bandcamp" refer to? Is that another webapp or are you comparing the
bookreader to a summer camp?

~~~
nerdponx
[https://bandcamp.com/](https://bandcamp.com/)

------
fnord123
Interesting that they go whole hog with the tournament model where everything
is based on the hustle and luck.

[https://www.demontfortliterature.com/](https://www.demontfortliterature.com/)
takes the opposing approach where they hire authors for a stable salary.

------
aportnoy
Explain to the folks at home what Bandcamp is

------
mathnmusic
How can one go about authoring a book on your platform? It's not the same old
EPUB, is it?

~~~
marvindanig
We have a code playground for authoring, so it's almost like frontend
development on each page of your book. Here'a quick tutorial if you're up for
it:

[https://bubblin.io/docs/tutorial](https://bubblin.io/docs/tutorial)

\m/

------
marvindanig
Hi HN!

Meet Bubblin Superbooks, a social book reader for web. It's _iPad first_ and
all the books (mostly public domain samples) work offline too using a service
worker.

Hope you like it! :-)

Good/bad, all feedback is very welcome!

~~~
chrisco255
I like the idea. The site is well-done and I'll definitely
revisit...however...I wanted to ask about some of the comments in the FAQ,
specifically:

> Files are about encoding those rotten ideals and force > them on the
> society.

> So why should e-books be files at all?

Well, without some kind of common format, you would need a browser always in
order to reliably view a book. Browsers are pretty awful on e-readers...so
you're basically forced to read a book from your phone or tablet through a
browser with this concept.

Another problem is that unless the books are embeddable HTML, it's easy to
imagine that your Bubblin formatting would not work well if I try to self-
publish to say, my personal blog. So am I not just trading one proprietary
file format for proprietary HTML/CSS/JS markup?

I like the vision. E-books can be so much more than they currently are and it
would be neat to see more rich visualization and interactivity inside of
reading experiences.

~~~
marvindanig
> …unless the books are embeddable HTML, it's easy to imagine that your
> Bubblin formatting would not work well if I try to self-publish to say, my
> personal blog. So am I not just trading one proprietary file format for
> proprietary HTML/CSS/JS markup?

That is correct. At a very high-level we'd ultimately need to spec out a web
standard to support books natively on web to avoid one proprietary format from
another; like the video tag perhaps.

For now (though it is still unfinished, raw and very very early) we have a
sister project called Bookiza.js [0] that let's you publish a Superbook on
your own website using markdown or haml. :-)

[0] [https://bookiza.io](https://bookiza.io)

------
the_other_guy
I love your website by the way. If I want to read 1984 on EPUB I will just
download it from Guttenberg or something but if I am reading it in browser I
will certainly use your service. I really don't know what all that negative
feedback is about. Of course, that doesn't mean we should turn into a
producthunt-like shilling party with fake positive comments, you guys need to
criticize without passing negative feelings to the authors. It's really
depressing to work months on something and then when you show it to people
they start complaining about things that aren't in your product's scope in the
first place.

~~~
sonicaa
Thank you! I'm glad you like it. :-)

