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Show HN: I made Readers, a social eBook reader (rdrs.app)

2 points by mattkevan ↗ HN
Hi HN, I built Readers as I wanted a way to share and read ebooks with others, such as with my team at work or bedtime stories with my family.

With Readers, you can:

* Add DRM-free epubs to your library or choose from a selection of (currently public-domain) ebooks.

* Read privately or create public/private reading groups and invite others.

* Sync reading progress, comments and highlights between group members.

Ideally I'd like it to become a sort of Bandcamp for ebooks, where authors and independent publishers can sell their books, but I haven't explored that yet.

I've been wanting to make an app like this for years, but being a designer not a developer I didn't think I'd be able to do it. However, a few months ago I decided to give it a go and with a lot of trial and error and some help from Claude I was able to put it together.

I've not built something of this complexity before so I'd value any feedback or suggestions you may have.

Thanks for taking a look!

5 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] thread
PDFBolt
This is a great idea! The group reading and synced highlights/comments features are especially compelling for both families and teams. One potential addition could be the ability to export group discussions or highlights as PDFs—useful for teams sharing insights or educators creating summaries.

Kudos on building something so polished. Looking forward to seeing how Readers evolves!

mattkevan
Hey, thanks for your comments!

Exporting discussions is a really good idea, thanks, will definitely look into that.

thebrothel_ai
It would be nice to use this without having to sign in!
mattkevan
I also made a simpler version [1] that stores ebooks locally in the browser, handy when you just want to quickly check out a book.

An account is needed for Readers so you can sync your books across devices, join or create groups and save your reading history.

[1] https://www.minimalreader.xyz/