From empty bookshelf to profitable side project in 30 days
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Last month, I took every book I've read off my bookshelf, put them into a black bag, and gave them all to a local charity shop. Then, I opened a mega To Read list I keep in Apple Notes and ordered a few hundred dollars' worth of books from Amazon. I mainly bought non-fiction, memoirs, and philosophy books. I enjoy tracking what I've read and what I want to read. Seeing a bookshelf full of unread books is far more likely to convince me to put away my phone and read an actual book versus doomscroll on X. That said, what’s the point in reading dozens of books if I don’t actually take ideas from them and put them to good use? I also always enjoy reading other people’s reading lists, so I wanted to share mine… in an unusual way. Looking at my mega list of books I've read and To Read prompted me to work on a new vibe coding project: Reading Curator. It was a fun, creative project. I worked on it during the white space I set aside each day for writing or building. I built it using Cursor AI. It’s not just a standard content site, though. It’s an AI-powered book discovery platform. It's an interactive site that allows you to browse and discover books across various genres. You can also use it for author and genre recommendations. You can use the tools to discover great reads and stay up-to-date with news about the book industry. The site is already getting several thousand visitors each month. Right now, it’s free to use and explore. If Reading Curator receives more traffic, I may add some paid features, such as a personalized book tracker. That said, for now, you can try it for yourself with ads or paywalls. If you have an idea for an app or a website, it’s much easier to turn it into reality today. No fancy overpriced devs required. Not convinced? Below, I walk through how I built it and the prompts I used to vibe code the book discovery tools on the site. ​Check it out​ (I used frameworks from my AI Prompt Writing course to code this site. If you're interested in getting access, reply to this email.) |