Can you create a SaaS product for a book?
Haven't we all read books and then were like: How do I implement what I just read? What if you could make it easier for everyone else who has read or will soon read the book?
Not a book that you wrote, but for a book you read and then determined it outlines the perfect roadmap for a SaaS product.
How would that work?
Should you offer the idea or provide the solution to the author?
Would it be ethical?
Could you partner with the author?
Maybe a licensing deal?
What would you do? or What did you do?
@jhart728 I'd say you might have a though road ahead on terms of legality. Definitely get agreement/authorization from author and publisher before you undertake a long project.
If you feel like this will be a revolutionary product and are willing to put some efforts, make some mock-ups, reach out to the author to present what you would be building and see how you can get some agreement.
If author agrees, he'll probably be checking with his/her literary agent and publisher to make things happen.
I'd say that most authors would want to have a product based on their book because:
If it's small, not a lot of work, you could also just do it and send to author for approval/ask opinion/endorsment. Might work as well (but don't publish at large until you have green light or at least some kind of approval from author).
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I've never did something of the sort (never thought about it) but this is my thinking.
I'm curious to see if anyone has other opinions.
I'm also curious as to how would you monetize that? Affiliate marketing for the book?
If I was to do something like that it probably would be with Chris Guillebeau's Side Hustle book (from Idea to income in 27 days).
The book is kind of a worksheet/workbook so having a digital companion to it would probably be nice/helpful.
@martdi thanks for the feedback!
You're thinking the same way I am about the whole thing.
Definitely have thought about it as a huge benefit for the author in order to have something like that to go along with the book. It makes me think of a book course that has been becoming more popular.
Devil's advocate though; nothing in the book is proprietary, meaning that it really is a compilation of several systems and processes used by about 6 other people since the early 1900s. The way the author puts it together and makes it easy to understand is what I like. I just want to bring the entire system of processes into a nice and convenient package for those that like living in the cloud.
Well, if nothing in the book is proprietary, I guess you would have more leeway.
However, since the author took a fresh take on that, and not many people might have, I would still credit the author about that, and even try to get endorsement as it would still be beneficial for both.
In terms of efforts, how much would it require? Would it make sense to develop it given the risks?
@AndrewKamphey would probably advise you to build this in google sheet and try to sell the sheets on Gumroad for validation. Might be the fastest way to market something like that :P
This would be very rudimentary in development and would take maybe a weekend or so to build out.
Basically, fill out some forms and then have the data be inserted into the overall product (kind of like when you do an assessment and then they provide the assessment in a pdf as a lead generator).
Thanks again.
Yeah create complimentary worksheets, checklists, generators, calculators in google sheets.
Create new videos showing how to implement the book and sell it all as a package via gumroad. Use onlysheets.xyz to automatically share sheets with buyers.
Love this idea and how fast it would be to get some validation for the MVP, before building a more sophisticated platform.
Hell that is basically how YNAB started!