Today’s edition covers:

• An easy end-of-year option to smartly promote your book.

• What else are you doing with the new referral program?

• Reader memberships are live!

• December roadmap & traffic updates

• Ben's updates and reading list

Fun Size! 🦥

• We are up to 1,300+ submissions for the Readers’ Favorite Reads of 2024! Please share your favorites and join the club (improved process).

• Shepherd is on Bluesky! You can find me here and the official Shepherd account here. It is nice to be on social media that doesn’t throttle posts that contain links (like all the big guys).

An easy end-of-year option for authors to smartly promote their books. 🦚

I am trying something new this year…

Readers love to know everyone’s favorite reads of the year, so I created something to help you engage your fan base around this.

We added a referral program so that you can invite your fans/community to share their 3 favorite reads of 2024. And for any readers you invite who take part, we will feature your book underneath their 3 favorites. This way, when their friends and followers explore their list, they also meet your book.

What do you think?

My hope is this helps you give your community something fun to do while also helping your book reach a wider audience.

What do you think? How could it be improved?

How does it work?

1. Invite readers to share their 3 favorite reads of the year using your referral URL (instructions below).

2. Your book will then be featured directly below their picks. When their friends explore their lists, they’ll also discover your book!

What is your referral code?

To get your referral URL, log in to Shepherd and go here: https://shepherd.com/accounts/referrals

Then, add your referral code to the end of any URL.

For example, my referral URL would be: https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads?referrer_id=061b91 (do not use this as this is my referral code).

If you need help, just hit reply, and I'll send you an email with your referral code built into the links.

What do I recommend doing?

I’ve found that this type of post works equally well in December or January. Personally, I will be posting to groups I run on January 1st and January 2nd.

What would I do as an author?

I would share it on social media and in my newsletter in December and January. I’ve had good results with both and I’ve heard similar from authors who did this last year.

• For Twitter or Facebook: I would make a post called “What were your favorite reads this year?” Then, in the first comment, I would share your 3 favorite books by name and invite readers to share their 3 favorites on Shepherd. That way, there is no external link in your post, as Twitter/Facebook bury posts with external links. In general, this is a better way to engage your community through a discussion, and then the link becomes a secondary suggestion under the post on social media.

I talk to a lot of readers via email, so I usually add it to my email signature. I also share it with friends and family via email, Slack, Discord, etc.

Need help?

Just hit reply, and I can help you with the URL or advice 😀 

What else are you doing with the new referral program?

For readers who refer readers…

If a reader refers a friend who submits their 3 Favorite Reads of 2024, they will be entered into a drawing to win $250 toward a bookstore of their choice (the drawing will be on February 1st).

This is the first year we’ve done something like this, and I want to see if that gave people a little more incentive to ask a friend or family member to take part. I’ll share what we learn 😄 .

For large book communities, book influencers, and authors with big fan bases…

We are trying something unique here.

We are creating a custom “Readers’ Favorite Reads of 2024” page for them to invite their fans to participate and then browse the unique results within that fan base.

I am emailing Stephen King today to pitch him on this idea 😁 .

Stephen would share his unique URL with his fan base, and then we would create a page showing his fans’ picks for 2024. They would only see what Stephen King fans picked as their 3 favorite reads of the year, and it would be a fun experience for that community.

It is our first year to try this and wish me luck!

Reader memberships are live!

I forgot to mention it, but I launched Shepherd’s membership for readers in November. We have already had some readers sign up through the author program, and I wanted to create one for readers as soon as possible (even though I don’t have many perks for readers yet).

I am glad I did, as we’ve already gotten a good number signups! I will start rolling out perks for readers in 2025.

My December Roadmap Update (For Authors)

What are we building now?

• Adding book series pages to Shepherd. (50% done)

• Upgrading the Book Boost Ad system for Founding Members. This will make the ads persistent, improve targeting, roll out new designs, and more! (5% done)

• Improving our default book cover if we can’t find a book’s cover. (0% done)

• Upgrade to our bookstore buttons to improve the UX. (0% done)

What are we building after that?

• Upgrading our bookshelves! I am so excited about this update, as it is what I always wanted as a reader 😀.

• Launching an author dashboard for Founding Members where they can manage their membership perks and Book Boost ad(s).

And then?

• A giant update for our genre and topic system. It needs a big revamp to improve genre/topic accuracy. This is a monster project for Winter. 

• I’ll share more as we get further along…

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For last month:

• We had 188,000+ visitors.

• We had 14,800+ clicks to bookstore partners this month. 

For a big-picture perspective:

• In 2023, we had 5 million visitors! Woohoo! 

• In 2022, we had 1.8 million visitors.

• In 2021, we had 266,000 thousand visitors (launched in April). 

Detailed stats on our traffic, clicks, sales, and demographics.

What else is going on?

My son is crushing Harry Potter 4 and loving it. I get nightly updates on what is happening 😃 . Otherwise, we are just getting ready for the holidays and enjoying Winter in our new home (France).

What am I reading?

I just finished...

• The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter—I wish this book was mandatory reading in High School or College. It gave me some good ideas and even led me to buy a Ruck (so far, so good on rucking).

• Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by KJ Parker - A hilarious lite-fantasy book that I enjoyed immensely. I am working on the sequel now.

• The Raven Viking series by Giles Kristian—I found this one through Daniel Greene’s list of the best military history fiction set in the pre-1900s. Entertaining books with interesting characters and a good dose of history are my kryptonite.

I am reading...

• In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts—A stunning book I am reading as part of my family book club. It is profoundly moving and enlightening. It is about addiction and the brain. The stories of the lives of people caught in addiction are brutal and weirdly uplifting sometimes.

Thanks, Ben

P.S. From a wonderful Fall hike in the mountains…