To help romance novel readers discover new authors and books, a Chicago startup has created an online platform to connect them with hot and heavy reads.
Book+Main, launched in 2017 by Tracey Suppo, allows readers to search romance novels by subject and plot line, rather than just by author. This enables readers who are interested in a particular subcategory of romance books to discover new authors they wouldn't have found otherwise.
Book+Main has 350 genre-specific keywords readers can search for, with everything from “single dad” and “fireman” to “vampire.”
“[Readers] have their specific wants of what they’re looking for and the problem was there was no way for a reader to discover a book based on content,” Suppo said. “It just didn't exist out there before Book+Main.”
When searching through books, users can read an excerpt from each that was chosen by the author, as opposed to traditional book jacket blurbs and summaries. The idea is that readers will get a better sense of what the book is about and the author’s writing style.
“We knew that the authors were willing to provide this exclusive content to engage with new readers,” Suppo said. “And this is the best way for a reader to experience the writing.”
The concept for Book+Main originated with a romance novel review blog and reader group Suppo launched in 2015. Now Book+Main has more than 46,000 registered users, which includes more than 3,400 authors, Suppo said. Both readers and authors hail from across 150 countries.
Though Book+Main doesn’t consider itself a social media platform, it does offer social media aspects, like giving users the ability to “like,” comment and share content.
Book+Main's business model is supported by affiliate links that direct readers to where they can purchase books, such as Amazon Books, Barnes & Noble and Audible. When a reader purchases a book through the link, Book+Main takes a cut. The startup also makes money through advertising and an author subscription fee, which is $9 per month.
Suppo said the platform will expand into other genres in the future, like young adult, but began with romance with novels because of the genre’s dedicated reader and author population. According to Romance Writers of America, 46 percent of romance readers read more than one novel per week. And to give an idea of how many new romance books hit the shelves every month, one romance novelist, Danielle Steel, has written more than 170 books, releasing about seven a year.
To grow Book+Main, Suppo said the startup will be focused on ramping up its marketing initiatives to attract new users and authors. To help it do that, the startup is currently raising funding on equity investing platform Republic. So far, the startup has raised a little over $52,000 from 121 investors. The campaign ends Aug. 31.
Book+Main, which operates out of 1871, was also in the tech incubator’s WiSTEM accelerator in 2018.
“It was such an incredible experience,” Suppo said. “To be in a group of other entrepreneurs, and especially women, that are experiencing some similar things, it was an extraordinary experience.”
