May
21 #nextbook for every niche
I'm not just an entrepreneur. I'm also a computer programmer. A basketball coach. A worship leader at a local church. A one-time Log Home builder. A computational chemist (in the past). A husband, a father, a follower of Jesus.
I've got books in my library related to all (well, most) of those roles. But I don't have the best books, or the most recent books for many of those fields.
What I do have, is a framework. #nextbook is a book classification system that sorts readers by role, by their goal, and by what is overwhelming them. It then assigns a book to each category. It needs to be expanded to allow for multiple options in each slot. It needs some cleaning up on the back end. But it could be the basis for a useful little micro-site for communities focused on a niche.
Here's what is needed to recreate #nextbook for your niche:
1) What are 3-5 roles your members identify with?
2) What are 3-5 goals that your members are aiming towards?
3) What are 3-5 of the top problems that overwhelm your members as they work towards those goals?
4) A big list of books that are relevant within your community. Get the title, author, cover image and ISBN for each, and an Amazon or other purchase link if possible.
5) Break out the categories and link one book to each category.
6) Package all of that up and send it to me, and I'll host it on northcreek.ca for free.
I have some tools to automate the process, and I'll keep building more as I get tired of doing the manual stuff. But the bones are there and available for anyone who wants to work with me.
I have a mailing list that I direct North Creek Book Hub (entrepreneur-focused) subscribers to. If you have a list, I can send subscribers your way as well.
I'm open for all kinds of suggestions, even if you have individual book or category recommendations for me. Send me what you have!
Thanks,
Dave
PS: Coders, feel free to connect if you have some spare cycles, I'll let you know what needs to be done - including a perl/shell/unix-y script to resize book covers and make better reflection images for the 'dock' animations. Thanks!