Useful before sign-up
Drop a file and read: books, progress, highlights and notes live in the browser’s IndexedDB, and the app keeps working offline as an installable PWA. One-file backups move a library between browsers without an account.
MY OWN PRODUCTLive
Readovo
My own product: a browser reader for EPUB, FB2, TXT and PDF with offline reading, free sync and paid cloud plans.
- Type
- Own product · reading app
- Business model
- Free reader · paid cloud plans from C$1.99/month
- Role
- Product, design, development and operations
- Stack
- Svelte 5 · TypeScript · Vite · Hono · SQLite
- Status
- Live at readovo.app
THE PROBLEMWHY IT EXISTS
Reading your own books should not need an account or an app store.
People who collect DRM-free books end up juggling a desktop reader, a phone app and cloud folders that never agree on where they stopped. Most readers either lock you into a store, require sign-up before the first page, or lose your place between devices. Readovo opens a book in the browser in a second, remembers everything locally, and only asks for an account when you want sync — and for money only when you want your book files in the cloud.
THE SOLUTION04 KEY DECISIONS
Key decisions in Readovo
A reader people can live in
Eight reading fonts, five themes, pages or continuous scroll, two columns on wide screens, full-text search, footnotes in place, five highlight colours and notes exportable as Markdown — for EPUB, FB2, TXT in any common encoding and PDF.
A fair freemium model
Reading and sync are free; a free account needs only a username and password. Paid plans (Pocket, Shelf, Library) add private cloud storage for book files, priced from C$1.99 a month with cheaper yearly billing.
Billing that cannot drift
The server creates each Paddle transaction for the signed-in user, and a plan is granted only from a signed webhook or a reconciliation with the Paddle API. Plan changes are confirmed before they apply, and double purchases are handled safely.
USER JOURNEYHOW IT WORKS
From a file on disk to a library on every device.
Each step is optional, so a visitor gets value immediately and pays only for storage they actually need.
- 01
Open a book
Drag an EPUB, FB2, TXT or PDF onto the page. It opens instantly and joins the local library.
- 02
Make it yours
Choose fonts, themes and layout; highlight, take notes and search the whole book.
- 03
Sync for free
Create a free account to keep progress, highlights, notes and settings on every device.
- 04
Add the cloud
Pick a cloud plan to keep the book files too, so any book opens on any device.
SCREENSHOTSTHE LIVE PRODUCT
Screenshots of Readovo
UNDER THE HOODTECH
How it is built.
- Svelte 5 + TypeScript + Vite, pre-rendered marketing pages
- Installable PWA with offline reading (Workbox)
- IndexedDB library with one-file backups
- Own EPUB, FB2 and TXT parsers with encoding detection; PDF via pdf.js
- Book HTML sanitised with DOMPurify
- Node.js API on Hono with built-in SQLite (WAL)
- Paddle Billing: server-created transactions and signed webhooks
- Book file storage on disk or S3-compatible object storage, de-duplicated by SHA-256 and gzip-compressed
- Accounts without email, admin area, status page and feedback inbox
- Docker deployment and Vitest tests for parsers, import, billing and the API
Need a product built and launched, not just designed?
I take projects from the first screen to payments and production. Tell me what you need and I’ll quote the scope.
Get a fixed quote