Ask HN: Rate my startup - customizable, downloadable books for children.

[readingteacher]

http://www.cookupbooks.com

The gist of the site is that parents or teachers can change the pictures and/or text of the stock books I've written as part of their reading instruction.

This site is a dream come true for me. I've been using these custom books to teach reading for quite some time now with great success, and facing retirement, I wanted to take what I've learned and put it online in order to reach a more global audience. It's AMAZING to see children's reactions when they flip a page and see a picture of themselves, or their dog, a parent, etc...

Please let me know what ideas you have for improvement! Thank you so much!

[patio11]

1) I know print on demand will absolutely murder your margins but offering it is worthwhile just for business development. You will find it much, much easier to get attention from the media that way. Your product is good enough to get into major newspapers if you pitch it right.

2) You really, seriously need to improve your web design. It looks like a ransom note. It should look bright, clean, safe, and inviting. You'll be selling to an overwhelmingly female audience. Many of them will have never bought anything online before.

3) Put one page of a sample book on the front page. Even a thumbnail will do. I'd suggest one with a smiling young boy. Put a handwritten note next to the thumbnail, circling him, and saying "This book was made special for Dylan. Why don't you make a book special for your child?"

4) Drop the email confirmation. Drop the password confirmation. These serve no purpose but to drastically decrease the number of users who sign up to your web site. Deck that page out with reasons why they should give you their info (what does this get you?) and reasons they should trust you (this phrasing works absurdly well: "We will not spam you.") I would consider dropping the name field -- are you going to address them by it prior to them purchasing? No? Nix.

5) The table at http://www.cookupbooks.com/my_books is confusing and meaningless to me -- and I live for selling teaching aids. Your users are going to be totally lost.

6) Find some satisfied customers and get a brief testimonial out of them. You want something that essentially sounds like "My son never liked reading, but he lit up when he was the star of the story!" -- Kyle's Mom. Feature that prominently next to decision points.

7) You are selling books at $1 / book / student. Parents are willing to pay much more than that. I have doubts about it being profit-maximizing for teachers, either. (For a point of reference, my typical customer pays $30 for a product they use roughly twice a year... and I undercharge terribly.)

[readingteacher]

Thank you so much for your well thought out responses. I am forwarding your excellent suggesstions to the programmer.

I, however, am wondering what you meant by "pitch it right" to the newspapers? Would you please elaborate a bit?

I wanted to make the site affordable for ALL children, hence the low price. But I will definetely give that some more thought.

[patio11]

Would you please elaborate a bit?

Here's the lede:

Dwayne Goes To Camp is a children's book. It tells the story of how Dwayne Williams, aged 6, went away to camp and ate s'mores. You can't buy Dwayne Goes To Camp at Borders, though: there is only one copy, and the owner isn't selling.

"It is awesome, especially the part about camp", said Dwayne Williams, aged 6.

Dwayne Goes To Camp is the brainchild of Susan YourLastNameHere, who at 5,307 books written in August alone may well be the world's most prolific children's writer. She was inspired to write the books, each individually personalized to the child who owns it, after noticing that struggling readers in her classes read best when reading stories which engaged their own lives and concerns.

"Every child wants to be the hero of their own story", said LastNameHere.

---

Seriously, you've got a quirky human interest piece with a doogooder angle on a silver platter for your friendly neighborhood education, style, or metro reporter.

[readingteacher]

OMG you're incredible! I'm going to get going on Dwayne's story ASP! LOL! Seriouly, though, your feedback has been outstanding. Thanks again.

[DanielStraight]

I think there are a lot of design issues that need worked out.

I had to expand my browser to 1139px wide in order to avoid horizontal scrolling. This is bigger than a lot of people's max monitor resolution. It is certainly bigger than I prefer to keep my browser. I tend to keep mine around 950px.

The text on the homepage is very jarring. Preferably, use only one font size and color for any given paragraph. At most, use two.

The table for displaying info on books give a huge amount of space to information which seems to be relatively unimportant. Is the number of words (especially when it varies by only about +- 75) really that important? If you trimmed it down, you could display information on a lot more books on a single page. I hate paging through information, and most users won't even go past the first page (think about how you use Google or Amazon... how many pages are you typically willing to look through?). Some sort of categorization/tagging may also be in order.

The "get started" link on the homepage really needs to contain more information. If you want your users to start there, you should give them something more. I never start with signing up. I start with learning about the service.

The about page mentions that you can unlimited students in your account, but it's not at all clear what it means to have an account and what it means to have students in it. You are giving details, but I'm not clear on the basics, even after browsing around for 10 minutes. I've visited every page on your site and I still couldn't tell you what the day-to-day use of your site will be like.

I don't mean to criticize. I think you have a great idea, but I think right now, it comes off as very under-developed.

[benjames]

Thanks Daniel this is great feedback! We'll definitely incorporate them (I'm the programmer).

The basics:

1) An account includes 5 free books (it should say "you have 5 book credits" on the left navigation) and unlimited students.

2) All accounts have at least ONE student. If you are a parent with 3 children, or a teacher with 30 you'll want to sort your books (and their customizations) by "student".

3) All books are complete with text and pictures.

4) Books are purchased in blocks ("credits"), i.e., if you purchase 10 books you'll have 10 book credits. It's THEN that you can click the dollar sign and "acquire" the book.

5) Books can be customized after they are "acquired".

6) Stock and custom books can be downloaded (in PDF) after they are "acquired" (the icons are terrible right now, sorry!).

7) ALL books are customizable. There are "suggested customizations" as part of the reading program, but you can customize everything (which could result in an entirely different book) if you so desired. You can customize a book only ONCE.

We will work on making this more clear...

[readingteacher]

Thank you so much for all your feedback. I have forwarded your comments to the programmer. I, too, have had some of the same concerns.

Please continue to check back from time to time and offer any feedback. it is much appreciated.

Susan

[jacquesm]

What a fantastic idea. I'll send it to everybody that I know that has small children.

Minor nitpick, I'm viewing this on a fairly wide screen and I still have to scroll horizontally.

[readingteacher]

Thank you so much. i have that issue too and hope to have it resolved in the next few days. Thank you for your feedback. Susan

[ScottWhigham]

So here are a few things:

1) I clicked "Get started" and then created an account. It took me back to the home page and asked me to "Get started" again. I clicked "Get started" again and it again asked me to create an account although I am already logged in.

2) I have a 5yo early reader and I thought this would be good but I don't understand what the "Levels" are.

3) I expected that clicking the book's preview page would have the same effect as clicking the preview button.

4) There is a typo in the alligator book on page 6

5) "Hot Car" is a weird story line for a kid lol

6) The dollar symbol says "Acquire book" when I hover over it. That doesn't fit with what I expected. I thought it should say, "Buy book" since you are showing me a currency symbol.

7) I've been on the site for 3-4 minutes now and I don't see or know how the "customizable" aspect works.

8) I previewed 5-6 stories and none of them appealed to me as the parent of a precocious 5yo boy.

I hope this feedback helps and I wish you good luck!

[readingteacher]

Thank you so much for the feedback. The levels correspond with what teachers basically refer to as "guided reading". A beginning reader would start on a level A and then just move up through the levels at their own pace.

Their are many older students (grades 2-4) which some of the books are geared for such as "Hot Car". The site is for children just beginning to read (your son may be too advanced), English language learners, and struggling older students.

I would love to know what subjects appeal to your 5 year old son! I'm always looking for new ideas.

[prpon]

FYI, When I click on the link `Books` on the landing page, the URL it redirects to http://www.cookupbooks.com/my_books does not show up in Safari (version 4.0.2) , it appears ok in firefox.

[benjames]

This may also be an issue with Chrome. I'll look into it. Thanks for letting us know!

[emson]

Good idea. Although I would like to see some examples of the books, and testimonials before parting with any of my money.

Good luck Ben...

[benjames]

Hi Emson,

To view the books just click "My Books" and then click the magnifying glass icon for any book you want to "look inside" of. Also, each account gets 5 freebies so you can download the stock or customized version of any of those as well.

I agree testimonials are a must. We also want to get VIDEOS of teachers and parents working one-on-one with the students and their cooked up books.

Cheers.

[Raphael]

Make it a web app. Physical books are a thing of the past.

[readingteacher]

I agree that physical books for fluent readers are becoming passe. For struggling readers, however, you need a "knowing other" sitting right beside you. The tutor can do all the modeling: 1 to 1 matching, moving left to right across page, return sweep, framing out word chunks, etc.

[Raphael]

Point at the screen.

[readingteacher]

This would certainly work okay with one child sitting at a computer. But,a lot of children do not have computers at home, so they are limited to only viewing it in the classroom setting.

When teachers do reading they usually divide the students into groups. Each child, and the teacher, has a copy of the book. This would be difficult to do on a computer.

In addition, personalized books may be presented as gifts, put in the classroom library, etc.

Other things to consider as well, screens have glare, a lot of school computers cannot be easily positioned for individual eye sight. Most importantly, in my mind though, is the portability, hands on feature, and easy access.

I hope this helps answer your question.

[benjames]

Regarding cookupbooks specifically, you already can read the entire book online, just click the magnifying glass associated with a particular book. And as mentioned, we're working hard to improve the user interface!

[steve_mobs]

your idea is great, but i agree with most people commenting your website design needs to be touched up.

[readingteacher]

We're getting right on it Thanks for writing.