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Comment by juanre | Hacker News Reader

Greaterskies, http://greaterskies.com - sells posters of the sky, thousands of stars and all the planets as seen from a place and at a time. Selling PDF ($24) and printout. Seems to be getting popular as a wedding present, also for birthdays. Common lisp backend computing the posters, Python and Javascript for the rest. Very nice conversion rate, but I haven't found the time to work on improving the number of visits.

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This is really nice! You should add some options for style though, I found the yellowish-names really hard to like. Whoever buys this needs to hire a print designer, if only to do minor correction to the basic template.

Thank you! And you are right, my strength has never been graphic design. But a significant fraction of visitors are buying, so I'd be inclined to spend the resources in gaining visibility.

Quick note: on the homepage, bottom left:

"But isn't this like any other start chart?"

I assume it's meant to be 'star chart'...

Correct. Thank you very much. Fixed.

Can you describe the actual production + s&h process? I assume it's 100% outsourced?

Sure. When you buy the printout the PDF gets computed, and an email is automatically sent to a US-based print service provider who prints and ships. You can also download the PDFs. When you buy the PDF only (the most popular version, despite the fact that the price of the printout is very competitive) everything is of course automated.

got a ballpark amount you'd sell for?

Would you mind contacting me by mail? I'd rather do this privately.

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