Show HN: BookWatch – Animated book summaries for visual learners
bookwatch.comHey HN! I’m Miran Antamian, founder and CEO of BookWatch, and I’m thrilled to introduce BookWatch.com. The first AI-powered Visual Library for learners who hate reading but love growing.
After 1.5 years of building, 65,000+ mobile app users, and countless animated summaries, we’re launching our New Web App to make learning even more effortless. The Problem: Visual Learners Can’t Learn from Books in Text or Audio Formats Did you know that 65% of people identify as visual learners? Yet most book knowledge remains trapped in text format. Many of us want the wisdom of great books but struggle with: - Finding time to read entire books - Maintaining focus through hundreds of pages - Remembering key concepts without visual reinforcement - Traditional reading is slow, boring, and leaves millions of learners behind.
Our Solution: Learn by Watching, Not Reading
BookWatch uses proprietary AI technology to transform non-fiction bestsellers into animated video summaries that capture the core ideas in a visually engaging format.
Some animated book summaries you might like:
- Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/aGtpl1QLtyzN6JlqRze7
- Zero to one by Peter Thiel: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/rSvhERHHBoF8bpTlXnyi
- The lean startup by Eric Reese: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/dTwT3JdLWvpAsOVGbePa
- Blitz Scaling by Reed Hoffman and Chris Y: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/ogoFpks8aRGn8OgmKP2F
What Makes BookWatch Special?
(1) AI-Powered Personal Book Expert Every video comes with an AI expert that knows everything about that specific book. Ask how to apply concepts to your unique situation: "How can I use these ideas to improve my startup?" or "How would this apply to my leadership role?". Our AI expert will give you specific advice based on the book on how to apply it in your life or business situation.
(2) Smart Note-Taking System Our one-click note system captures what's being said at that exact moment in the video. No need to pause or get distracted - just click and continue watching! Review and organize your notes later.
(3) AI Book Recommendation Engine Don't know where to start? Tell our AI what you want to learn ("I want to be a better public speaker" or "I want to be more productive" or “I want to learn b2b sales”), and it'll recommend the perfect books from our library.
(4) Progress Tracking & Gamification Stay motivated with achievement badges, learning streaks, and a visual representation of your growing knowledge base. See how many days have you been learning and which books helped you more.
Business Model
We've adopted a freemium approach: Free tier: 60 minutes of learning per day Premium: $89/year or $13/month for unlimited access
Where to Find Us
Web app: BookWatch.com iOS & Android apps: Search "BookWatch" in app stores Check out our growing YouTube community
Over 65,000 users have learned with BookWatch and we have grown on youtube organically to 100,000+ subscribers and 4.5M views!
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback! What books would you like to see in visual format first? What features would make this even more valuable for your learning journey?
Thank you HN community!
How do you redistribute money from your service to the authors?
We don’t make profits yet but we will do probably something like profit share.
the emphasis on self-help snake oil leads me to believe you know that this system would fail under the weight of actual information. if you find success, it will be on the backs of marks you conned.
Not all self help books are like that. Self development changed my life. And that's just one of the categories we have. You can check psychology, history, science, startup books too. And we are adding more.
Got any suggestions?
Depends on what you want to learn but some good generic ones are the willpower instinct, atomic habits, the personal mba
These animations look AI generated. Are they? I have had a quick fly through one of the videos and could spot quite a few AI drawing glitches.
Yes everything is ai generated!
Check out a demo of the web app and the features here: https://www.loom.com/share/be2fd38790ea4797addd1bd31683eddd?...
Looks impressive. Any plans to offer other creators the ability to generate their own animations from text content like blogs or articles?
Yes but currently our software for generating videos is very optimized for book summaries so it will not be as good... But we can do that in the future for sure if b2c doesnt work :)
Gonna be completely honest, if you want to draw in people with anything more than a casual interest in literature, your examples are an immediate turn-off. I suggest you spend time on subreddits of major genres + booktok + see what's trending on apps like Fable if you want insight into what books people outside of the silicon valley/techbro bubble consume and enjoy.
Will do!
As a visual learner, I'm excited about this!
Great!
Ok this looks interesting enough to try!
Thanks!
Amazing, I'll try
Thank you!
Looks good!
Thanks! Please give feedback once you used it!
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