Product Hunt needs To Be the new Oprah’s e-book membership

Product Hunt is expanding yet again. This time, the wildly popular product suggestion web page is launching a new tab devoted fully to books. Product Hunt Books, which went reside this morning, takes the web site’s lifeless-easy, Reddit-style submission and voting mechanism for products and applies it to sci-fi romance novels, industry biographies, and whatever different reading subject matter tickles the collective fancy of its geeky group.

“Our community was once no longer handiest requesting a channel dedicated to book discovery and engagement but also posting and upvoting books on the web page already,” says Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover. The surprising get up the Product Hunt ranks of books like Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk biography and Eric Ries’s The chief’s information prompt that there might be enough demand to enhance a vertical solely for books.

As easy as it will be to slap a “Books” hyperlink throughout the highest of Product Hunt, this launch comes with a bit more fanfare than that. The web page will host a sequence of Q&As with neatly-recognized authors like Tony Robbins, Amanda Palmer, Daniel red and Neil Strauss. At launch, Product Hunt has writer “ask me the rest” sessions (borrowing again from Reddit conventions) booked through mid-September.

The website is also launching Product Hunt guide club, a disbursed studying team that will tackle one ebook at a time, starting with Vance’s Elon Musk biography.

it’s easy to look at this and say: any other book list? are not Oprah, Amazon, and the brand new York times sufficient? the identical thing may have been mentioned for the unique incarnation of Product Hunt: A web site for recommending merchandise? now we have a million of these. And indeed, we do. but by some means, Product Hunt managed to construct a uniquely insightful and sought-after community for folks making instrument, gadgets, and other expertise.

For startups, has become a considerable and hotly favored part of any launch strategy. Making it to the front web page most often results in a flood of consideration, press protection, and mentorship, and every so often even connects startups with new investors.

“Self-publishing is on the upward push, and authors now have direct get entry to to their target market online in contrast to ever prior to,” says Hoover. “in consequence, it’s more difficult for authors to get observed and consumers are overwhelmed with possibility, growing an even larger want for curation.”

As with the launch of its games vertical remaining month, Product Hunt is hoping to bring its blend of simplicity and group-powered style-making to the literary world. What works for apps and new hardware may just or may not work for books, but Hoover is obviously confident enough to present it a shot.

any such lateral enlargement is certainly how Product Hunt plans on scaling. Hoover is not going to comment on which classes may well be next, however he says the web page tends to gravitate toward classes which have high levels of introduction, as gaming and books do.