My goal this year has been about exposure: showcasing more of the work I’ve been doing on my own to a public audience.
And I’ve been doing it. I have this blog up. I publish every week (it’s only been 6 weeks, but hey, it’s infinitely more than zero). I even demo’d a build to my boss on a 1:1 meeting.
Today, I showcased a desktop app I’ve been building called Book Lover. I am a reader. I read words, I read fast, I read good-ish. I love books. My parents like to say I was half-raised by schools, and another half by libraries, and honestly that explains quite a few things about me. Anywhere I go I have a book. It used to be a physical book in the days before iPads and Kindles. And during my globe-trotting days it was on a larger screen iPhone of some sort. Nowadays it’s a mix of both and my personal library is a barely contained chaos of paper and ink.
Needless to say, buying, borrowing, and organizing books is a life-long habit. The number of books I want to read, come across as recommendations to read, and daydream about reading numbers in the hundreds, if not thousands. If I were to win the lottery, I’d travel the world to find unique places to sit and read like a ridiculous Green Eggs & Ham for an introverted middle-aged ma.
“I WOULD, DEFINITELY WOULD IN A TREE.
IN A CAR! LEAVE ME BE to read.
I WOULD READ THEM IN A BOX.
I WOULD READ THEM WITH A FOX.
I WILL READ THEM IN A HOUSE.
EVEN IF IT HAS A MOUSE.
I LIKE READING HERE AND THERE.
I WILL SERIOUSLY READ ANYWHERE.
I’D LIKE TO READ BOOKS AND TRAVEL LATAM.
I WANT TO READ AND TRAVEL THE WORLD, FOR SREE I AM.
A TRAIN! A TRAIN! A TRAIN! A TRAIN!
COULD YOU, WOULD YOU ON A TRAIN?”
Yeah, of course, duh, see the above. Sleeper car with a big window. EuroRail through the Alps?
Sign. Me. Up.
Now, what I will not do, Sree I am, is deal anymore with the Goodreads and Amazon sham. It’s been a pain finding books, having to search in Goodreads and then add them to an Amazon list. And then periodically go back and cycle through various searches and sites to find the best option: do we go with Apple eBooks, Kindle, Amazon used (if available) Thriftbooks, Libby, etc? Each search takes time, takes mental space, and if you do purchase outside of the Amazon list, you have to manage the list itself.
I also don’t like giving Amazon that much of my data. My reading preferences feel significantly more personal than the supplements I take, the cleaning supplies I buy, or the excessive amount of glitter and markers I purchase (for my child, not myself…usually).
So, I built Book Lover….well, I’m still building Book Lover. The MVP is mostly done. There’s some improvements to make. But here it is. I did this.
https://www.loom.com/share/42b7d7867f4a4b35b99bdf21184e4b5f
And then I showed it to a forum of strangers…and they loved it!
So that made my year.