Bookhype is something I’ve been quietly working on since May. I haven’t said anything about it yet, but I think I’m close enough now that I’ll start putting out some whispers. 😉
Bookhype actually started in April. I found myself wishing there was a directory of special edition books, because I love finding and buying them. I didn’t know of one, so I created one instead. But after just a month, I stopped updating it because I had loftier ambitions! And the result of those ambitions is what will soon be the Bookhype relaunch.
Relaunch
The relaunched version of Bookhype will be a more extensive book cataloguing and new releases website (not just for special editions!). This is a project I tried to do in 2014 but wasn’t able to put it together. Now, my circumstances have changed, and I’m finally able to move forward with it!
This has been the project of my dreams. If you know me, you probably know book software is my passion. Ultimate Book Blogger, Book Database, Rating Report, Novelist… I love books and I love to code, so it’s natural for me that these come together.
But Bookhype… Bookhype is something seriously special. Not only is it a useful cataloguing tool, but it’s book discovery and news. The actual raw book data. That’s what held me back in 2014. I knew I couldn’t do a site like this justice if I didn’t have the book data to back it up. But now, I think I’ve finally got that nailed down!
Site focuses
The features I’m focusing on are:
- Accurate book information. I don’t promise to have this right out of the gate, but it’s something I hope to fine-tune over time. More on this in a later post!
- Reading tracking and statistics.
- Discovering and getting alerted about new releases.
- And of course: finding special editions of books.
I pretty much took all the cataloguing features I love about the Book Database plugin (which I use on my own book blog), moved them to a central website, and added a few book discovery features. I’m really excited about some of the stuff I have in store!
Timeline for launch
I’m hoping to launch the beta in August. Fingers crossed! Over the next two weeks I’ll be loading a bunch of books into the site. I suspect that won’t go perfectly, so I’m planning for a couple weeks of tweaking and re-importing. Once that’s done, the site will be open for beta signups (on an approval basis), and a more official launch will follow sometime after.
More news to come!
I know I’m being vague right now. I want a few more pieces in place before I start showing actual site features. But very soon (hopefully) I’ll start going into more detail about what Bookhype actually has available.