AppSumo Taco Truck Roundup: Closely, First Book AI & More

This Week's AppSumo Lineup

Another week, another batch of lifetime deals to dig through. The Taco Truck Roundup is where I break down everything new at AppSumo so you can make informed decisions without spending hours clicking every button yourself — because I've already done that for you.

This week's lineup covers a solid range: LinkedIn and email outreach automation, AI-powered book writing, SaaS expense tracking, and video repurposing. It's a mixed bag with some genuinely useful tools and a few that still need some work. Let's get into it.

Closely: LinkedIn and Email Automation

Closely is a LinkedIn and email automation tool built for cold outreach. It lets you send automated email campaigns and grow your LinkedIn network through connection requests and messages. The interface is clean and easy to navigate, and the campaign builder is surprisingly comprehensive for a lifetime deal.

On the safety side, Closely includes some smart features to keep your LinkedIn account from getting flagged. It uses randomized login times for sending messages and provides a dedicated IP address, so LinkedIn doesn't see suspicious logins from random locations around the world. There's also a Chrome extension if you prefer to browse LinkedIn manually while still leveraging the tool's automation features.

I reviewed Closely right after looking at Aimfox, a direct competitor. The comparison is interesting: Aimfox feels more polished and user-friendly, but Closely offers significantly more features for power users. Closely does have some interface quirks — certain things aren't immediately intuitive until you've used them a few times. It also includes a built-in lead finder database, which lets you bypass LinkedIn entirely. The database is decent but more limited than LinkedIn's massive user base. For my test, the lead finder returned around 98 results compared to over 100,000 on LinkedIn for the same search.

Cold email and LinkedIn automation aren't for everyone, and there are real challenges around deliverability and appearing authentic. Closely does add an unsubscribe link to automated emails, which some users dislike — but honestly, if you're sending bulk outreach, that's both a legal best practice and something email providers look for. I gave Closely a 7.8 out of 10.

First Book AI: Write a Book in Under 90 Minutes

First Book AI is exactly what it sounds like — an AI-powered tool designed to help you write your first book, fast. The premise is that you can go from zero to a finished book in under 24 hours, though in practice I finished mine in under 90 minutes.

The workflow is straightforward. You give the tool a premise for your book, and it generates an outline. From there, you write the first chapter and provide some personal anecdotes so the AI can weave them throughout the remaining chapters. After that, it handles the rest. There's also a second mode that gives you more structural control without writing every word for you — a better fit if you want genuine AI assistance rather than full AI authorship.

I went in deeply skeptical, expecting unusable output, but I have to admit the process was smooth and the results were surprisingly competent. The one annoying UX issue was that the tool kept bouncing you back to the main dashboard after each step, forcing you to click back into where you left off. Minor, but unnecessary friction.

Whether or not cranking out AI-written books is a net positive for society is a philosophical question I'll leave to the reader. But as a tool, First Book AI delivers on its promise. I gave it a 7.3 out of 10.

AppSumo Black Friday 2024: What You Need to Know

AppSumo is shaking things up for Black Friday this year with a new drop-based format. Instead of dumping every deal at once, they're releasing deals in waves — each drop lands with a 48-hour window where prices are at their lowest. Once the next drop arrives, prices from the previous batch go up. So timing matters more than ever.

The drops kick off November 18th and run through the week. The following week shifts to daily deals with code-limited discounts on popular tools. If you're an AppSumo Plus member, you'll get access to exclusive deals within the drops, 10% off everything on top of existing discounts, and an extra three days to shop — regular sales end December 3rd, but Plus members have until December 6th.

There's also a $100K giveaway to help grow your business, run through KingSumo (which Plus members get for free). Even if you don't win the grand prize, AppSumo is giving away their entire Black Friday featured tool lineup to 10 people. On top of that, there's a free Black Friday gift available right now — the ClickMinded AI Marketing Toolkit, which covers prompt engineering basics and AI marketing strategies.

Software Subscriptions: SaaS Expense Tracking

Software Subscriptions is a SaaS management tool that lets you log and organize all your business software expenses in one place. The core experience is clean and well-executed — you can easily see your monthly and annual subscription costs, and there's a helpful calendar view showing when upcoming charges are due. A Chrome extension lets you add new subscriptions on the fly as you sign up for tools, which is a nice touch for staying current.

Where the tool falls short is in its license key management feature. I was hoping for something like a mini password manager dedicated to license keys, but that's not what it is. Instead, it seems designed for tracking which licenses are assigned to which employees or clients. The documentation was thin, and the implementation felt incomplete — for instance, you can't assign two license keys to the same person, which is a common real-world scenario. It felt like a feature that was partially thought through and shipped early.

There's an obvious irony in buying software to manage your software purchases, especially in the AppSumo ecosystem where deal hoarding is practically a sport. But for people who genuinely need to track their SaaS expenses — or who just enjoy maintaining a tidy database of their collection — this fills the gap. My broader advice: focus on the tools you actually use rather than accumulating a virtual shelf of lifetime deals. The software landscape is increasingly commoditized, and AI is only accelerating that trend. I gave Software Subscriptions a 6.4 out of 10.

Kiwi: AI Video Repurposing Tool

Kiwi is an AI-powered video repurposing tool that takes your long-form content and converts it into shorts or vertical clips for social media. It can publish directly to multiple platforms and includes language translation for subtitles, which is a nice differentiator. Processing speeds were fairly impressive for shorter videos, and it automatically generates multiple clips from longer content.

The problems showed up when I wanted to edit what Kiwi produced. The editing capabilities are extremely limited. Since the tool auto-crops your video for vertical format, if it doesn't frame the right part of the screen, you're stuck — there's no way to manually adjust the camera position. In my case, a form I was demonstrating got cut off, making the clip essentially unusable.

Caption customization is another weak point. You set caption colors once at the application level, and every piece of content you create uses that same styling. If your videos alternate between dark and light backgrounds, you'll constantly have readability issues. The clip selection timing was also off — clips would start mid-sentence, several words before a natural section break, creating a disjointed viewing experience.

Several commenters mentioned Minvo as a stronger alternative, a former AppSumo lifetime deal that I haven't personally tested. If video repurposing is something you need, Kiwi works at a basic level but the editing limitations are a real drawback. I'd keep an eye out for Minvo if it returns to AppSumo.

Final Thoughts and Black Friday Prep

This week's roundup had a solid spread — Closely leads the pack at 7.8 for anyone serious about LinkedIn outreach, First Book AI surprised me at 7.3, and Software Subscriptions and Kiwi both have potential but need more polish.

The big story heading into next week is AppSumo's Black Friday event kicking off November 18th. With the new drop format, the best prices hit first and go up after 48 hours, so being ready when deals launch matters. If you're not already an AppSumo Plus member, now's the time to sign up for that extra 10% off and early access to exclusive deals.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.