About Bookhead
Bookhead was created by Sam McAlilly. He learned to code when he was a bookseller and the store wanted to redesign the website. Years later, after time spent working as a web developer, he decided to sell his book collection online but he wasn’t happy with any of the available software for bookstores. All of the bookselling software was either too expensive, ugly, hard to use, or not specific enough for a bookselling business.
He built a prototype when he was stuck on the couch with a broken foot. He realized that he could combine his experiences as a bookseller and web developer to make something useful for bookstores if he put in some more time and effort, but working on the project in his free time burned him out. The project sat around collecting dust, with random bouts of inspiration when he worked on it. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to commit to providing software that people depended upon for their business. That is a serious undertaking!
He decided to start working on Bookhead full-time in July 2024. Bookhead’s services include the software marketed on this website and a consultancy that helps book-ish enterprises sell online. We can help your independent bookstore, small press, or library with your website, automated tasks, digital marketing, and design. Email sam@bookhead.net if you’re interested in working together.
Mission
Bookhead’s mission is to help people use technology to promote literature. We believe that literature is one of humanity’s most prized creations, and we can use technology as a tool to keep this gift alive. That’s a fancy way of saying that we promote the literary arts by providing book people with technology tools that help them with their work in bookstores, libraries, and publishing companies.
We serve the users of our software. Bookhead is an employee for every bookstore that uses our software, in an abstract way. We see code as a replication of our labor. Using Bookhead software is like hiring clones of us.
Bookhead is not a startup. We are a small business that makes software. We are not looking for an exit. We will never sell to Amazon or private equity or anything like that. That sort of action would be a failure of our mission and completely at odds with our values, as those people are not passionate about books and don’t care about helping our customers.
We care about the people we serve. We don’t want our products or customer service to make people feel bad. We intend to create software that people enjoy using.
We are committed to the success of our customers. We value our relationships, working together as collaborators. We don’t take lightly the role that we play in their businesses.
That’s a lot to say, but we needed to spell out the implied parts of our mission: we help people use technology to promote literature.
Created by Sam McAlilly
I'm a programmer, writer, and former bookseller. I've led and contributed to software projects for local governments, journalists, researchers, and libraries. I worked for an independent bookstore where I designed websites and print materials, promoted events, and marketed books online.
Email: sam@bookhead.net
