Show HN: The missing link of a bookstore's tech stack
I built Bookhead because I used to work as a bookseller and I wasn't happy with the software options when I decided to sell my own collection online (with the hopes of one day growing so I can open my own brick & mortar). So I decided to make my own bookselling app...a classic hacker distraction.
Bookhead has two main parts: 1. an inventory management app that allows a bookseller to list their books anywhere they want to sell books (like Squarespace, Biblio, eBay, Shopify (coming soon!), etc) 2. an e-commerce platform with a CMS for selling books and letting a store control their online brand
I have a very exciting roadmap that I'm not ready to fully reveal, but it's all based on books. I'm building a sorta Zapier-like platform for independent booksellers. Everything is so fragmented and disconnected, which makes it hard for booksellers to do their work. I'm hoping to change that. I have a blog post that lays out my vision here: https://bookhead.net/blog/fragmented/
The current iteration is like "data engineering as a service for books." A book is a powerful thing. I'm hoping to give a bookstore everything they need to sell books online. Inventory, e-commerce, marketing, etc. It's a crowded market but I've had fun making the bookselling app that I believe should exist.
If you know any booksellers, please let them know about this! I'm onboarding my first customer right now and the biggest bottleneck is the other bookselling software providers, despite my intention to collaborate instead of compete. It's frustrating to wait for two weeks for a point of sale provider to setup an integration. It's almost like they don't care about their customers. Some providers even require ethernet cables for their software...still partying like it's 1999. Perfect for early-adopter booksellers frustrated with current tech who understand the power of automation.
I'm currently looking for funding so I can focus on this full-time. My biggest problem right now is time (aka money) because I have to sell my time to make rent etc, and can't focus on this project like I need to. I've gotten good validation from booksellers and other technically savvy folks in the industry (I've heard from two different companies that they've considered building something like this), so I believe I have something valuable. I'm not interested in funding from somebody who doesn't share my love for books or doesn't support my mission: help people use technology to promote literature. I believe that literature is one of humanity’s most prized creations, and we can use technology as a tool to keep this gift alive.
Please email me at sam@bookhead.net if you know of booksellers who might want to be an early adopter, or know of any funding opportunities that might be a good fit.
- If you're _not_ using AWS, I'd explicitly mention that somewhere. I know there are a lot of indie bookstores who care about avoiding Amazon and any Amazon services. If you _are_ using AWS, well, you might find that you get more business from indie booksellers by not using it.
- I'd add an explicit list of supported POS systems in the Overview of the docs. This was one of the very first things I wanted to check. (My store's POS isn't supported, btw.)
- I'd add an explicit list of supported channels in Overview of the docs, as well. This was also one of the very first things I wanted to check.
- I'd focus on adding Square as a supported POS. From what I see in the ABA forums, this kind of thing might appeal to the bookstores using Square as a POS. Especially if you can load the book data you have into their POS, possibly based on SKU? Maybe that actually would warrant a separate product you could offer (or that someone else could make).
i have a chicken and egg problem with POS providers. i've had to reverse engineer the ETL to accept FTP files, making the sync generic since nobody will let me develop on their system without a customer who wants it. i've been waiting two weeks for basil to add the integration for our first customer. and about to start with ibidie.
and yes 100% on not using amazon. i was indoctrinated against them as an indie bookseller. i've even avoided using free amazon credits.
the docs feedback is great. thank you!!! and square is next step after i finish shopify. i will use that to sell my books at pop-up events and it would be a great little starter system for a small bookstore. then i'll add ingram integration with ordering etc. going towards "the brains of your bookstore". sort of a newer take on POS that integrates with everything, and the basis is the inventory.
it's a similar product (right now) and definitely a very crowded market. i only need a small sliver of the market to sustain the business, so i think there is room. there are a lot of other similar products too, like booktracker. some of the book point of sales have the inventory syncing built-in, at least for some platforms. bibliopolis is built on wordpress so that gives them technical limitations (at least from an outsider - i could be wrong about that). i'm not even sure if they can sync from a point of sales onto their platform because i've seen bookstores manually enter all of their inventory from ibid into bibliopolis (which now i gotta go fact find that because now that i write this out, this seems like the greatest value-add to your question). i'm not sure how coupled bookrouter is to wordpress. i don't think they support integrations with shopify or squarespace or square etc. bookhead is platform agnostic but "platform agnostic" is too developer-y to the average bookseller so the pitch is more: "this will work with your existing tools and connects everything together" which is a pitch we are always refining.
i have a different overall vision than those products, and it's built with a more modern tech stack and design considerations. i have an ai prototype for appraising books that i've successfully used to appraise and list my own collection. and i plan to build in some automation tools that would be useful to a bigger brick & mortar, like "order me 5 more copies of 'as i lay dying' when inventory count gets down to 3" and other ways a savvy bookseller could hook into automation that could help them with their work. and for the non-technically savvy users, i'm hoping to have great customer service to help them with some automation. i think this might end up being a core part of the product but only time will time. i also have some marketing tool ideas that nobody has built, based on some past experiences working in library tech and my time doing marketing for a bookseller.
also, most of the incumbents don't have the greatest reputations but stores have no choice to use them. there is no reason that a store needs to go through customer support to set up an integration (which is the norm), though support will always be there to help if a customer struggles with that. there is also no reason that your product should have a waiting list, but this is common, too. bookhead is designed to be self-served.
one thing i've found weird: being able to sell "new" and "used" books has been a differentiator for some incumbents, which is strange and suggests to me that these apps have a bad data model. so i'm hoping to change that. it's awkward to communicate this in marketing.
aesthetics and design matter to some people, too. most bookselling software is ugly and hard to use. think about drip or basecamp — those products were in crowded markets but they were still successful because they took their own approach and it fit some people but not everybody.
but of course, the market will have to decide.
Fwiw your landing page seemed to do a good job in this regard.
Best of luck!
> I have a very exciting roadmap that I'm not ready to fully reveal
actually means:
> I've made up a list of cool / fun to build features with no user input whatsoever
specifically
> i have a different overall vision than those products, and it's built with a more modern tech stack and design considerations. i have an ai prototype for appraising books that i've successfully used to appraise and list my own collection. and i plan to build in some automation tools that would be useful to a bigger brick & mortar, like "order me 5 more copies of 'as i lay dying' when inventory count gets down to 3" and other ways a savvy bookseller could hook into automation that could help them with their work. and for the non-technically savvy users, i'm hoping to have great customer service to help them with some automation. i think this might end up being a core part of the product but only time will time. i also have some marketing tool ideas that nobody has built, based on some past experiences working in library tech and my time doing marketing for a bookseller.
helps to have somebody helping me who works in a bookstore. and also helps to use it myself, since i am user #1. was waiting for the HN cynicism! glad you like it :)
I know some stores that use Shopify or Adobe Commerce. When it comes to books, there are a LOT of SKUs (think IC has 2-3 million on it's built-in catalog). 5 years ago, that was a big challenge for folks wanting to sell on Shopify (which is IMO the best eCommerce platform)
> When it comes to books, there are a LOT of SKUs (think IC has 2-3 million on it's built-in catalog). 5 years ago, that was a big challenge for folks wanting to sell on Shopify (which is IMO the best eCommerce platform)
i have a blog post planned about this. i think the modern indie bookstore tech stack should be bookshop.org doing it's thing + a website with your local inventory. let bookshop sell all the inventory you don't have on hand but can easily get from ingram, and then your unique inventory will rise above in SEO. it doesn't make sense to me for 600+ IC stores to all have the exact same inventory, competing in SEO with the exact same metadata. but what does your local bookstore have? unique titles that only they carry.
> Bookweb
tells me you've been around for a while... if you are a bookseller, come find my table at winter institute 2026!
edit: for now, i don't have time to do the accounting etc that sales percentage would require
also, bookshop is wonderful! we love them. from my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44662335
> i think the modern indie bookstore tech stack should be bookshop.org doing it's thing + a website with your local inventory. let bookshop sell all the inventory you don't have on hand but can easily get from ingram, and then your unique inventory will rise above in SEO.