Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I self-published a book
Hey folks, I wanted to share my latest project, which is a book that I wrote and self-published. The book is called Behind the Ivy Curtain: A Data Driven Guide to Elite College Admissions, and the link is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013YFIQ30. Let me give you some backstory. I went to a fun high school but it was really easy and fun and I was a pretty big slacker. Around sophomore spring I decided I wanted to leave Florida, and the best way to do that was to get a scholarship to a good school. I had no idea how to do that so I spent a bunch of time reading…
Behind the Ivy Curtain is a self-published guide to elite college admissions based on data analysis. Written by someone who used research and strategic planning to become the first student from their high school to… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I self-published a book launched in 2015; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1IW
2012 · guidetoyc.com · its alternatives →
- 2
A data driven guide to elite college admissions
2015 · namecheap.com · its alternatives →
- 3IM
2022 · networksfromscratch.com · its alternatives →
- 4IM
Hello. This year I dived into UI/UX area and at the same time I work as a web developer. I sincerely love making good UI. But at my full time job it's not always possible due to different reasons =\ So I've been posting random UI/UX staff on Twitter, then I made a free book that had 50 tips (posted it here as well). I decided to finish this year by collecting everything I learned and here it is: https://akcium.gumroad.com/l/ui-ux-tips. This time it's a paid one. But, you can check ~20 pages of it, just go to…
2021 · its alternatives →
- 5
One funny & one amazing story on college admissions
2015 · thisamericanlife.org · its alternatives →
- 6
Hey HN, I just wanted to share that after five months of intense work and countless caffeine-fueled writing sessions, "Master Software Architecture: A Pragmatic Guide" is now available. Writing this book was a crazy time. I entirely focused on it, and it took exactly 753 hours of writing, editing, and image editing & resizing(!) until the premiere. Yes, the last one (images) was a killer. If you ever think about writing a book, reserve a lot of time for it unless someone else does it for you. As a result, I am handing you the nearly 400-page book. It is a guide that will help you connect all…
2024 · leanpub.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Hi HN! I'm currently a Master's student at USTC (University of Science and Technology of China). I've been diving deep into Data Engineering, especially in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs). The Problem: I found that learning resources for modern data engineering are often fragmented and scattered across hundreds of medium articles or disjointed tutorials. It's hard to piece everything together into a coherent system. The Solution: I decided to open-source my learning notes and build them into a structured book. My goal is to help developers fast-track their learning curve. Key…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
- 9SP
Hi HN, Over the past 6 months I've been working on a technical book focused on helping aspiring data scientists to get hands-on experience with cloud computing environments using the Python ecosystem. The book is targeted at readers already familiar with libraries such as Pandas and scikit-learn that are looking to build out a portfolio of applied projects. To author the book, I used the Leanpub platform to provide drafts of the text as I completed each chapter. To typeset the book, I used the R bookdown package by Yihui Xie to translate my markdown into a PDF format. I also used Google docs…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 10
This took me 3 years to finish. (It is 100% self-published, not endorsed by Google.) So… I wrote a book. It’s a different book with a unique approach. It’s not a novel or a technical book. It’s a biography, a company’s biography. My hope is that it serves two purposes: to inspire founders and to captivate interior designers. It all started three years ago. My wife and I were discussing interior design for our living room and she brought up what beautiful coffee table books should we have. After looking at her favorites I realized there’s nothing like this for tech startups. Digital products…
2024 · damaia.com · its alternatives →
- 11IJ
2015 · magetdd.com · its alternatives →
- 12IW
As hard as I tried, I didn't find a modern language learning book that's either very academic, or like "master a language with my super-magic great method in 3 months". So I dug into the academic research, tried many techniques myself, saw what worked, wrote a book for learners of any language and any level, and made it free without ads. Today, finally, a 2 years-long project ends. I hope it helps anyone. Book's here: https://thehardway.guide/ Cheers
2023 · its alternatives →
- 13
AI College Counseling for High-Schoolers
2025 · myaicollegecounselor.com · its alternatives →
- 14IM
My niche is LSAT prep. I write books of explanations to LSAT practice tests. It's a pretty big industry, as people will pay a lot to improve their odds of law school admissions. I realized that, with my books, I have ~400,000 words of quality content that people search for. Lots of long tail searches for individual LSAT questions. So I made a site of free explanations for the most recent LSAT: http://lsathacks.com/ Took about a week to write them and put them up. If it goes well, I'll release my other explanations. Hope to make this a hub for LSAT study. If it's well received,…
2013 · its alternatives →
- 15AS
Got rejected from YC a few times, so I built a site to collect lessons, reflections, and what people would do differently next time. Thought it could be helpful since most founders apply more than once anyway :) Hope it's helpful: https://ycrejection.com/
2025 · ycrejection.com · its alternatives →
- 16
- 175A
Hey everyone! I wanted to share a project that I've been working on the last few days that I finally finished last night: https://50books.org This is a simple site designed to track your reading list into 2015. My personal goal is to read 50 books this year, and I wanted to hold myself accountable. Major sites like Goodreads are great, but were too much of a social network for my personal taste; on the other hand, using a text file (which was my 2014 solution) was too difficult to track and share. I built https://50books.org using Sinatra, sqlite3 (via datamapper), and…
2015 · its alternatives →
- 18
2018 · yourfirstproduct.com · its alternatives →
- 19LY
Almost one year ago I asked HN if anybody is interested to make a Web app to make reading and finding scientific papers smarter [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1664648]. No one did, at least no one did what "I" think is the best way to approach this problem. A a few month ago I decided to do it myself.<p>Meet JournalClub iPad app (absolutely free), http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/journalclub/id443819334? I have a recommendation engine in the pipeline that I would introduce in the next update (hopefully in a month or so). I really appreciate any comments, feedbacks.
2011 · its alternatives →
- 20
AI - Powered SOP Writing for Global Admissions
Oct 2025 · ivyedgesop.com · its alternatives →
- 21
Just about a year ago, the concept for a sci-fi book popped into my head. I instantly knew I have to see it through despite not having any writing experience (and a pretty demanding job). Over 2025, I attended writer circles, improved my writing, and structured the story. Here is the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it :)
Jan 2026 · docs.google.com · its alternatives →
- 22
I'm thrilled to share something I've been working on for the past year. We built your dream tool for turning the idea you wished could be a book into a book - we call it Omniscience. It goes from a single prompt to a high-quality, cover-to-cover novel or non-fiction book. You can sample our non-fiction by reading Revolutionizing Life Design (https://t.co/zfdBALBkNw) and Unhinged Genius (https://t.co/JVNXAJAqsE) or our fiction by reading Omni Genesis. https://t.co/5WSQ3jsaA5 Plenty of other great works are available in the library, and you can…
2023 · twitter.com · its alternatives →
- 23MB
Hi, I spent the last year and a half writing a book on Docker and microservices, which was finally released on O'Reilly this week. "Using Docker: Developing and Deploying Software with Containers" takes a holistic approach, showing how containers can be used as the central artifact in a modern software development workflow. If anyone has any q's or feedback, please feel free to comment below. The book is available at: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920035671.do (use code AUTHD for a discount)…
2016 · its alternatives →
- 24EE
Hey, guys and girls :) Please notice, that my intention is not to advertise my project here, but to ask for your advice. Long story short: we've noticed that it's very hard to "sum-up" any idea on one page and share it without using a blogging platform. Let's say you want to collect and present your point of view on "IA reaserch". You can write a blogpost or use social media to share your opinion (that would reach limited amount of people though). We really missed a tool that allows you to embed a lot of different resources on one page and than to share it with one link. This way you can…
2013 · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →