Ask HN: How do we promote Australia's marketplace for books?

[bhoung]

We've built a marketplace for books in Australia and have recently hit the marketing phase and are struggling to get into it. Any advice on trying to crack the secondary market for books, and promoting a website in general?

www.bookon.com.au

[qsun]

Why another market? Why people don't use gumtree/ebay or whatever forum to sell their used books?

Compare to cars/houses, books are quite simple - the only practical searchable attribute is the book name. Thus no point to dedicate a website just for the book.

I would suggest u guys change strategy to build a book-trade website, for example, I can give my used books to you, and you would owe me 1 book-point, then I can use the book-point to purchase used books from someone else.

And for books, a community is more important than marketplace, probably you should add more web-2.0 elements into it.

Also, I personally don't understand why so many australian websites put geotrust logo at the footer - it is tooooo ugly.

[bhoung]

Agree with the community being more important than the marketplace, will look to add more web 2.0 elements...

Why another marketplace? Because if I love books, then I want a place to hang out where there is only book related information.

[hansy]

This is pretty standard advice, but find forums, blogs, clubs for book-lovers. They can help promote for you (if they like your idea). Pitch to them like you would any VC or angel investor but cater to their passion for books.

Where do people like to read books? Coffee shops? Parks? Maybe you can add marketing material to these areas?

In general, what advantages do you offer over, say, Amazon's marketplace? I think its important to highlight why people should use your website over someone else's.

[bhoung]

Thanks! We've been trying to contact physical bookstores and online sellers til now. The forums, blogs and clubs may be a better way forward. Amazon does not operate in Australia and the most active marketplace is a minimal free service run by universities (textbooksexchange).

[meric]

See my reply to your thread.

[meric]

Here's my amateurish website: http://textbookcentral.com.au/

Started with 1500 visits/month in July and now up to 3500 visits last month, almost entirely search engine traffic.

Even with that many visits, the fact that I've segregated the market into thousands of little ones means buyers and sellers rarely meet.

If you're interested in talking more about it, my email is in my profile.