On: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

[thibaut_barrere]

http://www.hackerbooks.com is a direct financial failure.

The income does not cover the hosting as is! Early on I expected it would be a small earner (maybe $50/mo) but we're not there even.

On the other hand, it had a fairly positive impact on the consulting/learning side of things (ETL, data processing etc).

[sandeepshetty → thibaut_barrere]

Based on your stats & the size of your dataset, I'm guessing you could easily host this at AppFog on their free tier: http://appfog.com/products/appfog/pricing/

[thibaut_barrere → sandeepshetty]

For now I'm happy to leave it where it is and keep my focus on shipping/growing my SaaS product (https://www.wisecashhq.com).

But thanks for the note that said! I have that migration marked in my TODO list :)

[no_more_death → thibaut_barrere]

I use and appreciate your site. I've been meaning to pick up some of those books next time I get cash to buy books.

[thibaut_barrere → no_more_death]

Thank you!

[hilti → thibaut_barrere]

I think Your site has great value. Just keep it up and do marketing.

[thibaut_barrere → hilti]

Thanks! The thing is that it got plenty of coverage but nonetheless it brings very few in commissions.

I'm currently focused on a SaaS product (profile for info), but who knows, maybe I'll get back to it a bit.

[jc123 → thibaut_barrere]

Wondering what is the "conversion" rate? Around how many unique visitors do you get monthly? Your site looks good and something seems off if the coverage is good...

[thibaut_barrere → jc123]

I collected a few stats here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvUEclt_oCPedHV...

The typical conversion rate (after removing SU visits which are basically bouncers) is at 0.43%.

The earnings is around $5 for 1000 pageviews (without SU) or $3 (with SU included).

Any thoughts on improving this?

[adrianwaj → thibaut_barrere]

Make it a tweetmeme.com for Amazon items. Can you also pick out ebay items?

[thibaut_barrere → adrianwaj]

Picking ebay items could be a bit of work.

But the tweetmeme idea is good, I'll keep that in mind, thanks!

[adrianwaj → thibaut_barrere]

Right on. Check out this too http://www.computer-book-authors.org/junglescan.htm

http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/Amazon_Sales_R...

http://web.archive.org/web/20030729051353/http://www.jungles...

(also scanning (sub)reddit)

[peterjmag → thibaut_barrere]

That's a fantastic site. Bookmarked!

[thibaut_barrere → peterjmag]

Thank you! People seem to really like it (I got plenty of emails etc).

[logicalplastic → thibaut_barrere]

Wonderful site!