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Must they be revenue generating to be successful? I had a theory once, years ago, that I could use the "Google suggest" feature to prime a Q&A database that would be perfect for SEO. Since my topic of interest i Shakespeare I wrote a script that hit up google with queries like "why did macbeth a", "why did macbeth b", "how did Hamlet c" ... and so on. The extra letter at the end would then return up to 10 different suggestions from google, so instead of just "why did hamlet" giving me 10 completions I ended up getting over 200. I believe there's a few online tools now that will do this for you. I did mine a good number of years ago. Probably should have made that the product :)

Anyway, I made a monster database of Shakespeare's canon this way, using all the proper names of the major characters and some simple natural language (how did X, why did Y, when did Z..., who is Q...) and got several thousand suggestions, which I then used to populate a question and answer database and turned it loose.

Almost immediately started getting about a thousand hits a day. I was surprised by how well it worked. I then tracked the most popular pages, filling in content so that they'd stand and even better chance at ranking highly for that particular query (and variations). I would tweet out the questions to my followers to have them come write the answers. I could have repeated that loop forever.

Unfortunately I bet on the wrong horse for my q&a software and when my hosting provider upgraded the OS my site promptly died and I was never able to get it up and running again. So I took what I learned about the most popular queries, reinvented the site in more traditional Wordpress, and am manually working my way through the list, writing lengthy, researched answers for each question. Quality rather than quantity. Still not something easily monetized, but I'm learning a great deal about my favorite subject.

Shakespeare Answers is the site, for the curious. I'd like to eventually go down the route of "get enough useful content to turn it into an information product", rather than simply slapping some AdSense on it like we used to do in the old days.

Less successful was my foray into the world of ebooks. My personal mission is to convince people that Shakespeare is not dull and boring :) and one of the things that bothers me is every "quote database" that just spits out out-of-context lines without giving the reader the chance to learn more about who said it, what play, and so on. Here's trivia for you, pretty much all of them are guaranteed to contain a number of quotes that are not by Shakespeare. They don't care, but it drives a guy like me nuts!

So I started writing a book on the subject. Somewhere along the line I narrowed my focus to love/romantic quotes, and then even more specifically wedding quotes, because I'd really focused on the fact that so many people use Shakespeare's sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...") that I thought, "Everybody uses it because it's the only one they know. I'll make a book that gives you more choices." I also had a friend who is a florist that makes all her money from weddings who agreed to help me market it.

Hear My Soul Speak is the result. Gets some purchases, but very few. The ebook thing turned off my florist friend's market (because she couldn't really put something in their hands), which hurt coming out of the gate. Then, despite blasting all my followers with review copies, very few came through to help me out. That was disappointing. I think my mistake falls into the realm of "Solving a problem nobody has." Fans of Shakespeare already hunt down special quotes, rather than using the standard ones. Casual fans of Shakespeare are happy repeating the ones they already know.

I regularly think about trying my hand again at the ebook game but have yet to find the right angle that appeals both to me as well as to a large enough audience (see "Shakespeare Answers" long term strategy, above ;)).

i think we're saying similar things but yeah sorry if it wasn't clear. PG didn't come up with the idea on his own but he was definitely influential. If you're interested I really liked this book (it's a little long tho) on the story of Reddit - https://www.amazon.com/Are-Nerds-Tumultuous-Internets-Laboratory/dp/0316435376/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=reddit+book&qid=1557806676&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Hey there, thanks for subscribing!

Since you're coming in in the middle of the month, I wanted to let you know that we selected Tipping Point:... by Malcolm Gladwell as the January read.

Here is a non-affiliate link to the book's amazon page if you're interested in joining for January.

Thanks again!

yeah I know these book recommended by startup community, there is also http://theleanstartup.com, and from zero to one

anyone know another recommended or similar books ? would like to have another books to read

Really appreciate for sharing your cheers!

Each book title is parsed by the following steps.

1. Search for "amazon.com" keyword within title and description. i.e. https://www.amazon.com/Into-Wild-Jon-Krakauer-ebook/dp/B000SEFNMS
   
   
2. Extract the Amazon ASIN part - B000SEFNMS
   
3. Fetch book details from Amazon API using the ASIN.
   
   { title: "Into The Wild", author: "Jon Krakauer", ... }
   
   There are lot more going on to filter non-book and expired ASINS but that's the big picture.

I'd like to be supportive, but I think there are already a lot of things like this on the market:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WLLMSHR/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CO4ICT0

Seriously, I play frisbee golf and ultimate frisbee on a regular basis, I have used a dozen of these and own a few, what exactly is the improvement here? And what warrants the inflated $17 price tag?

Same thing, $5, after a ten second google search

http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01CIMODGE/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

here ya go!

I think there are some guys who read the 7 Day Startup Book.

Its from the owner of http://wpcurve.com

I saw this one today on producthunt http://shopenhancer.com/

Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/No-Excuses-Self-Discipline-Brian-Tracy/dp/1593156324