Launched this week
Obooko

Obooko

Free books to replace your doomscroll

307 followers

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Obooko is a free reading platform we've rebuilt from the ground up after 15 years and 11 million downloads. Thousands of books available to read instantly in your browser, sync across devices, or download PDF/EPUB/Kindle. No subscriptions, no lock in, no proprietary formats. 4,000+ legal book titles across 30 genres from indie authors and NYT bestsellers. Ad-supported like YouTube, so readers never pay, authors earn. We exist to increase the world’s reading minutes.
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Obooko gallery image
Obooko gallery image
Obooko gallery image
Free
Launch tags:eBook Reader•Books
Launch Team / Built With
Universal-3 Pro by AssemblyAI
Universal-3 Pro by AssemblyAI
The first promptable speech model for production
Promoted

What do you think? …

George H.
SmartrMail
Maker
📌
Hey all, I’m George. I’ve spent the last few months rebuilding Obooko, a free ebook platform that’s been around since 2010 with 11 million downloads across 840,000 readers. tldr: reading time is declining while screen time explodes. #BookTok has 370B+ views, which is *more than every book ever sold in human history*. So the demand for book content is massive. The format just hasn’t kept up. Obooko is our answer. It's completely free, ad-supported. There's no subscriptions, no DRM, no device lock in. Just books. What’s new in this rebuild: Modern web reader: start on your laptop, pick up on your phone Personal library that syncs across every device PDF, EPUB, and Kindle downloads: your choice, always 30+ genres, thousands of titles from indie authors to NYT bestsellers My background: I previously my online art marketplace to $100M+ in art sales and built/exited SmartrMail. This is my third venture. A book changed the direction of my career in my twenties and I genuinely believe reading expands minds and changes lives. That’s why we exist: to increase the world’s reading minutes. What’s next: Revenue sharing for authors. Readers never pay, but authors earn from the ad revenue their books generate. Every read earns. Our motto is: Fiat Libri. Let There Be Books. i'd love to hear what would make you choose a book over your feed? And if you’re an author, what would make you publish with us?
Nika
minimalist phone: creating folders

What about the commercial titles that should normally be purchased in the store? Those are excluded?

I like the idea. I am trying to read more again (but paper books), because when I have a device nearby, I am so tempted to use it.

George H.
SmartrMail
Maker
@busmark_w_nika yeah we only have legally uploaded books, so that’s indie publishers and authors who upload titles, plus a growing collection of classic titles which are copyright free (Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights have been very popular on us last few weeks!). We are talking to some of the larger publishers about trials of some novels too once our revenue share model is live.
Nika
minimalist phone: creating folders

@gthartley Cool, understandably, many commercially known want huge profits, so the selective process will be challenging. Anyway, I think that this would deserve to be promoted on Substack or other platforms where people love reading or have a look at Ellipsus to partner with them. https://ellipsus.com/

Mehrzad Goli

You’ve done an excellent job, sir!

I’ve Checked Obooko and got some feedback for you.

It would be better to add a Google login or use third-party services like Clerk.

Since I have a design background, the Brand Sprit I see in Obooko is quite similar to a website like Patreon, and it fits perfectly. However, you can pursue what they’ve already done and enhance the visual and user experience.

George H.
SmartrMail
Maker
@mehrzadgoli yeah totally agree, Google login is way better than the current email only! Got pushed out of this V1 in order to get the reader live. It’s coming 🙏🏼
Andrei Tudor

Congrats on rebuilding Obooko and the launch!

I'm curious tho about the experience users have regarding long-form reading mixed with ads tho. While I agree that it's a great way to keep the platform free, I find it hard to find it similar to YouTube's model - when it comes to video, it's easier to handle an ad every few minutes because the content is short.

But if I'm deep into a book for hours, do ads break the flow? How did you balance monetization with not killing the reading experience?

George H.
SmartrMail
Maker

@andreitudor14 yeah I’m grappling with ads in the reader right now. The average reader is spending 26 mins onsite (10x the total average) so it would monetise way better but currently there aren’t any ads in the reader. I want to prioritise a nicer UX for now. Maybe down the track I’ll try pre roll video ads in the reader, but unsure.

Germán Merlo

Yeah! Let's stop dumb-scrolling. It's a super cool alternative to make our time not only more productive but also healthier. Happy to see you helping on this George. All the best here!

George H.
SmartrMail
Maker

@german_merlo1 thanks for the support! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Van de Vouchy
Congrats George! How are you doing marketing for obooko?
George H.
SmartrMail
Maker

@vouchy most of my marketing is around SEO (so onpage improvements and some content) as that’s were almost all our traffic comes from, and email. Our Facebook page was 26,000 followers was hacked last year and deleted! Meta haven’t been able to help so that was pretty deflating. I’ve got Insta and TikTok but it’s not my forte so I don’t do much there. I run most of my daily marketing through a Claude skill I’ve written, which saves time as it’s just me doing it.

Letian Wang

Love the 'YouTube model for books' idea - readers get free content, authors still earn. That's a win-win that could actually scale. The classics collection sounds great too, might finally finish Wuthering Heights.

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