Shepherd August 2025: Video update on our full reader app 😃

And why I wish authors had more free options to reach readers who might be interested in their writing.

Author

Ben Fox
August 23, 2025

Today’s edition covers:

  • Video update on our full reader app 😃 

  • Why do I tell authors that Shepherd is 1 of 100 things they should do to market their book?

  • Reminder: Our new bookshelf section launched!

  • August roadmap & traffic updates

  • Ben's updates and reading list

Three hurrahs for our 815 Founding Authors! 🥳 Your support keeps Shepherd independent and together we will build the book platform authors deserve.

What do Founding Authors receive?

- 📚 Book Boost Perk: We introduce you to 100 to 200 of the most likely readers for your book every month as a thank you for your support!

- 💪 You are directly funding a team that whose mission is to figure out how to make it easier for authors to sell their books in ways that delight readers.

- 🗓️ Every Thursday I have 3 hours of open slots for any book marketing questions you have (on Zoom). I don’t have all the answers, but I can help with what I know and tell you when I don’t.

- 🔔 We will soon have the new book launch perk ready. This will allow members to feature their new books on all the “new book” pages of the website (we are launching these as part of the new bookshelves). I’ll share more details when that is ready in August/September.

My goal is to reach 1,500 author members as that would give us enough revenue to build big features like a dashboard for authors with stats and more! Every dollar goes toward new features and growing the platform.

Thanks, Ben Fox and the small but mighty Shepherd Team.

Fun Size! 🦥

Video update on our full reader app 😃 

Reminder: We are building a full app for readers that is like Goodreads but smarter and deeply personalized.

Here is a 2-minute video walk-through of the frontend so far, and we will start building the frontend shortly. We are still doing a lot of user testing as we test the UX flow and core concepts.

And you can try the mockups here if you want to poke around a bit. We are still working on quite a bit, but I’d love to hear what you think.

Please reply and let me know if you have any thoughts 😀.

Why do I tell authors that Shepherd is 1 of 100 things they should do to market their book?

You have probably heard me say this a lot as I say it on calls and all over the website:

I say we are 1 of 100 things because we have a small website, and we’ve only had the resources to build two methods to help readers get in front of readers so far.

What are those two methods we use to connect you with readers so far?

On average, we might get you in front of 150 to 300 of the most likely readers for your book every year using these two formats (full breakdown here). And that keeps happening every year with the way our system works (and as we add more features to connect you with readers).

But that is still a small amount.

If you had 100 options like Shepherd, that means you might bump into 15,000 to 30,000 interested readers every year, which would be fantastic.

The unfortunate reality is that authentic ways for authors to bump into readers are almost nonexistent. We need more places where authors can freely and easily bump into readers. And for books to get more and more exposure based on merit, based on the response from readers.

That is the crux of my goals for authors with Shepherd.

Over the next 10 years, this is what we will be working on. And we need your support to keep working on this problem. Please consider joining as a member and creating the world you want as an author.

Who else is working on this problem, and I would highlight?

Royal Road is crushing it within that genre. I haven’t seen any similar platforms helping authors as much (although maybe within Romance niches).

Do you have any platforms that you have found helpful as an author that are free?

If so, please reply and let me know.

Reminder: Our new bookshelf section launched!

Bookshelves are discovery points centered around genres, topics, and age groups (full details here on what we added).

Try the new bookshelves here…

Please hit reply and let me know what you think of the new pages. Also, if you spot any bugs, please let me know. We are working on one mobile bug that snuck up on us.

Also, if any genres are missing from search, let me know 😄 

My August Roadmap Update (For Authors)

What are we building now?

What are we building after that?

  • We will improve the navigation within the book and book-like sections (it will look similar to the new book series pages and be much easier to navigate).

  • We are revamping our genre and topic system. It needs a significant revamp to improve genre/topic accuracy. We are also working to add themes, tropes, moods, and more!

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For last month:

  • We had 211,000+ visitors.

  • We had 12,200+ clicks to bookstore partners this month. 

  • Of those, 2,000+ were clicks to an author’s promoted book.

Last year, we had a total of 3.2 million visitors.

What else is going on?

We are on a family vacation in Belgium! We’ve had a great time (apart from a rooster that likes to wake us up at 6 am). My son and I did a 3-day 131km biking trip along a converted rail route. He was especially excited as it went from Luxembourg to Belgium and finished in Germany. And he did his first 50km day, which is pretty awesome for an 8-year-old.

What am I reading?

I just finished...

  • I reread Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. My son might read it soon, and I haven’t read it in a long time. Such a sci-fi classic!

  • Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson - We read this as part of a family book club, as we wanted to see what all the noise was about. It was a good summary of various challenges the USA and the world face. I am hopeful that, over time, we can implement more fixes in energy policy and housing.

  • The Hobbit - I’ve never read it, and my son and I were reading it together. It was a good short story, and I can see how this blew minds in the early 1900s.

  • The First Command series by Michael Simon - This was a fun military science fiction series, and I am looking forward to reading book #4 when it comes out.

I am reading...

Thanks, Ben

P.S. From our father/son bike ride!