[HN Gopher] Show HN: Engineering Book Club
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Show HN: Engineering Book Club
An online community that enjoys reading and discussing engineering
books together.
Author : miguelbemartin
Score : 56 points
Date : 2023-05-09 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engineeringbookclub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engineeringbookclub.com)
| sefrost wrote:
| People complaining about the price might be interested to know
| LeadDev also hosts a monthly book club. They interview the author
| of the book and you can submit questions via their Slack.
|
| https://leaddev.com/series/bookmarked
|
| https://leaddev.com/bookmarked
| umayah wrote:
| every book in the image on the front page isn't an engineering
| book
| _navierstokes wrote:
| When I open this website it tries to connect to Phantom or
| MetaMask. Why is that?
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| That should be something in your end, maybe chrome extension or
| whatever, my website is a simple NextJS deployed in Vercel.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Really love the design of the website.
|
| Couple nitpicks: In the FAQs: "How is processed the payment?"
| should probably be "How is the payment processed?".
|
| "Registration closes on Friday, April 28th at 12 midnight PT." at
| the top of the pricing section. What happens now that the
| registration is past that date?
|
| All 3 of the FAQs have to deal with pricing. To be honest, I
| would like to know more about the actual service. How are group
| scheduled, what platform is used to do the meetings, what if no
| one joins a group, is there a refund policy, how many members are
| there, etc...?
|
| At the end of the day, I have paid 10$ for much sillier things,
| so not a terrible idea. Good luck!
| apsurd wrote:
| I am also curious about the logistics of the club. It seems to
| be this: https://circle.so
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Yes, we are using Circle as a platform and we are paying 99$
| each month. We have only 30 spots available, so it will
| basically cover the cost of the platform itself (if we get
| all the spots filled).
|
| If you have organised a community, you know it's not only the
| cost of the platform, it takes time to coordinate, moderate
| and basically build a community.
| apsurd wrote:
| Definitely! I personally welcome more paid communities as a
| de facto spam/abuse/troll/commitment filter.
|
| I'm interested both as a participant and as... let's call
| it what a positive mental-health online community looks
| like post FB/IG/TikTok.
|
| edit/ more actionable feedback: while I am interested,
| there's a misalignment between "lightweight commitment for
| me to check this community out" and "pay $50 to peek into
| something I'm not sure is right _for me_". For example, the
| cost of many communities is "create an account" and that
| seems like a high bar for most people in itself.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| You can try our service for one month and decide if it's
| right for you. If you're not satisfied, we offer refunds.
| You can find more information about this in the FAQ
| section on the payment page. We want everyone in our
| community to be happy, as this is a side project aimed at
| creating a fun experience.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback, really appreciated. Definitely, the
| texts in the website have been the hardest part of the launch.
| calculated wrote:
| You're kidding right? Charging 50 euro for access to basically a
| Discord, Slack, etc. channel.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| The concept of paying to be part of a community is not new, you
| can find many communities that charge more than 5EUR/month.
|
| You can find some examples here:
| https://community.circle.so/c/showcase/
|
| We are using Circle for organising it and it costs us money,
| additionally, it will also take time to organise and moderate
| the community.
|
| I also believe that paying for something brings more
| commitment, so this is why we have decided to introduce a small
| fee for joining the community.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > I also believe that paying for something brings more
| commitment, so this is why we have decided to introduce a
| small fee for joining the community.
|
| Absolutely. People that are willing to pay are more serious
| and generally more likely to positively contribute. Paying is
| a way to signal that to oneself, even.
| mtlynch wrote:
| It takes a lot of work to manage an online community well. 50
| EUR/year is probably lower than the true cost.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Agree, I have been organising local Meetups in the past and I
| know how much time it takes.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This is the business version of, "well actually I could do this
| in a weekend."
|
| The potential for one decent connection for future
| jobs/coworkers (referral bonuses!)/cofounders is very high with
| something like this. 50 euro is fine. If it's too high, the
| market will signal that. If it isn't, it will fill up.
| gppeixoto wrote:
| There are actual people working to curate the content, manage
| the community, etc. And as such, they charge an amount for the
| work they're doing. If you think the price does not meet the
| value, then you can... just not pay it.
| leglock wrote:
| Are people actually curating the content? The website sounds
| like the members are the ones suggesting books. It is unclear
| to me what managing needs to be done if the members are
| pairing up on their own.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Someone has to manage the membership fees, naturally.
| alex_lav wrote:
| Respectfully, is this a joke?
| cush wrote:
| Yes
| alex_lav wrote:
| Excellent!
| pessimizer wrote:
| If we ever get proper privacy legislation, or harsher penalties
| for companies that get hacked and lose customer data, or
| anything that blocks widespread data collection and
| monetization, you'll be paying 50 bucks a year for your
| favorite chatrooms and messageboards and be happy about the
| bargain you're getting.
|
| There's no motivation without the surveillance to give away all
| of this work for free. When you do stuff peer-to-peer, it
| _always_ costs money if you want it to be sustainable. Like for
| example, a book club. Either everyone is going to take a turn
| hosting, or everyone is going to give the host a few bucks
| /bring snacks/wine/etc. (or you're going to go to some
| commercial space that sells food and drink, and buy food and
| drink.)
|
| None of the options are free. Peer-to-peer (as opposed to
| sponsor/consumer) will never be free. We should support models
| like this, not act like we somehow _deserve_ better.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Also: Spaces are limited to 30 spots.
|
| I can create a free Discord for this right now and it'll cost
| me (and the people joining it) exactly 0EUR
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| We want to initially limit only to 30 spots to see how we
| could manage the community and the online events. We will
| evaluate if it makes sense to open more spots in the future.
|
| The idea is to create "online coffee chats" where everyone is
| able to participate.
|
| I have used Circle with other communities and I can say that
| the experience is much better than using slack or discord.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I can create a free Discord for this right now and it'll
| cost me (and the people joining it) exactly 0EUR
|
| But the reality is that you haven't.
| jacobrussell wrote:
| The best book clubs I've been in are ones where the members had
| to pay something to be in it. I think everything should be done
| to get the people who sign up to actually show up and
| participate, and part of that equation is usually charging
| everyone a little bit, especially if the people in the group
| aren't already friends.
| uoaei wrote:
| I've seen much the same filtering/curation effect achieved by
| charging _any_ amount, not just absurdly high amounts.
| cush wrote:
| Those people would also organize and run the club. This is
| just a site to connect people together. That's the easy part.
| alex_lav wrote:
| Would've absolutely done it if it included actually getting the
| book.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Thought about this idea, but there is not a simple way to
| organise this logistic worldwide.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's worth trying to work out. People love exchanging money
| for goods and services. The more you can do for them aside
| from actually reading the book for them, the better. When
| other people take care of things, one can relax and enjoy
| oneself.
|
| Even if you can only do it for 50% of members because of
| whatever logistical problem, it's worth it. Although it seems
| it'd be simple enough to email publishers and offer to buy X
| number of copies of an ebook in the context of a book club.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| That's actually a great suggestion. I will dig deeper to
| see if there are ways to do that.
| blueridge wrote:
| It's real simple: Give new members an Amazon gift card to
| purchase the book. You buy the gift card, then send the code.
| Or, buy a gift card to their local bookstore so they can walk
| in and buy a physical copy, or they can use the funds to
| place an online order and have the book shipped through the
| store.
|
| The best way to get a book club off the ground is to make
| sure everyone has the book in hand before the discussion
| starts. "First book on us" is a great way to build momentum,
| and it lets people know that you're serious about the
| project.
| zwieback wrote:
| Sounds like a terrible idea - people are starting to hate the
| subscription economy, I know I do.
|
| I run a fiction book club at work and it is a lot of work, none
| of which I see this website solving.
|
| Also, it's unclear whether I still have to buy the book or
| whether the subscription allows me access to an e-version of
| whatever is being read.
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Just curious, what are the problems or work when running your
| book club that this website is not solving?
| zwieback wrote:
| The biggest problems:
|
| a) Selecting a book, we want something at least one or two
| members have already read to make sure there's a good
| recommendation. Going by reviews has not worked well, it's
| better if someone brings the selection to the group because
| they have some personal stake.
|
| b) Coordinating the schedule - you want to give people enough
| time to read the book but two months out the calendar is
| still volatile so often I have people drop out last minute
| due to meetings being schedule over, frustrating for everyone
| and apparently people don't want to tell their manager
| bookclub trumps work meeting.
|
| c) Recruiting new members, we usually have a steady core
| group but want to beef up our roster to where we don't end up
| with awkward 2 people meetings.
|
| Some of these issues don't apply with technical/business book
| meetings since it can be done chapter-by-chapter. We've done
| that as well and it's easier but usually after two or three
| chapters people drop off or lose interest in specific ones.
|
| You could argue that your website isn't concerned with some
| of the above (e.g. people preselect books, then others show
| up automatically) but Goodreads and others already do the
| same for free.
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| I want something like this to exist so I have signed up!
|
| It looks promising...however I have to agree with the
| issues that Zwieback raises. I only found the scheduled
| online events after I signed up, neither of which I can
| make. You need to address the 3 issues raised. I'll added a
| calendar event in 2 months, so you have that long to
| convince me :)
|
| Good luck!
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Thank you for your valuable feedback. Our community is
| just starting, and we welcome any suggestions for new
| ideas or preferred time slots.
|
| We are currently exploring the possibility of scheduling
| events in the morning or afternoon, as well as finding
| times that accommodate participants in both NAM and EMEA
| regions.
|
| May we know your preferred time for the online events?
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| 9pm London.
| millzlane wrote:
| Couldn't we start a HN Bookclub? we could start with some light
| reading about software design. Possibly A Philosophy of
| Software Design by John Ousterhout.
| Minor49er wrote:
| There's a typo on the front page:
|
| > The goal is to create a group of professional with similar
| interests and share the passion of reading engineering books
| together.
|
| It should read "group of professionals"
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback, fixed :)
| petercooper wrote:
| Good luck! I think it could work, especially if you can "preseed"
| it with the right people. A bit like any social experience
| really. I floated a similar idea many years ago and most of my
| contacts said it sounded boring and wouldn't sign up, but.. I
| want to be proven wrong by someone! :-D
| miguelbemartin wrote:
| Building communities is not easy. I have already experience
| organising local meetups and it takes time until people
| understand the value of being part of it. I do not have rush of
| growing the number of members, the idea is to start it simple
| and see how it goes.
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(page generated 2023-05-09 23:00 UTC)