What's new for August?

1. September Zoom Event + Q&A

2. Improved book recommendation design launched!

3. Why am I building Shepherd? Longer answer...

4. What is Shepherd cooking in August?

5. Roadmap + August traffic updates

6. Ben's updates and reading list 

Funsize:

• I am a big fan of Scott Galloway, and he created a great book recommendation list to accompany his new book, The Algebra of Wealth. It's great to see him take part in Shepherd! :)

September Zoom Event + Q&A

I will do a Zoom event on September 7th at 10 am Central USA time. 

What will I cover?

1. Talk about what we are changing for the big "best books of 2024" event. 

2. Talk about what we are building over the next 6 to 9 months for readers and authors. 

3. And I will answer any questions you have about Shepherd 😀

What time zones?

• London - 4 pm

• Paris - 5 pm

• LA - 8 am

• Denver - 9 am

• Dallas - 10 am

• NY - 11 am

Repy back I'll add you to the calendar event (with the Zoom URL).

Thanks, Ben

P.S. Here is the direct Zoom link if you don't want me to add you to my calendar event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3072658033?pwd=dGJrRzdETm94MFB5UzZYc2lCOW5tZz09&omn=85097001181

Improved book recommendation design launched!

The goal is to improve the visualization of the books, which will thus improve the bounce rate, scroll rate, and number of reader interactions (plus it looks prettier). 

Try the new design with this list by Phil Bailey on the best first contact science fiction novels. 

I also tweaked the author's promo spot to now appear at the top and bottom of the list. So far, this has increased interest in an author's book by ~10%. 

Do you like the changes? Let me know!

Why am I building Shepherd?

I struggle to find books that I love.

It is easy to find books; you load up Amazon.com and start browsing through millions of titles. However, finding a book you will love is much harder.

I am tired of buying 4-star-rated books that lack characters with depth and arc. Characters are everything to me, and I am hungry for books that make me feel sad when I have to say goodbye to them. I want to find books where I delay reading the ending because I can’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to the characters.

I want to build a place to connect with readers who share this love of characters and find books through them. I don’t need a 100% success ratio; I just need to bump into a steady stream of books that other people love for the depth of the characters.

For other readers, this might be the book's uniqueness, the world the author created, the writing style, the feelings the book evokes, or what they learned through the book. Whatever it is, I want to help readers find books they love (not just like).

I want to addict the world to reading because Shepherd helps them find books that match what they love to read (not just like), so they always have a book in their back pocket (better yet, a book in each pocket).

I struggle to find books that are served to me with a side of passion, personality, or expertise.

I love getting book recommendations from friends, but it is rare. So, I want to find more “book friends” who share my interests and tell me what books they love 🧐.

I love feeling someone’s passion for a book and being inspired to read it (like this list).

I love asking people what books changed their lives or comforted them when life slapped them hard (and I am excited to bring these formats to Shepherd soon).

Passion, personality, and expertise are much better than a star rating.

I despise star ratings for books.

Rating a book 1 to 5 stars is a travesty for humankind 🤣.

I understand the need to summarize data to assess whether a book is a match… but a book is so personal, and 1 to 5 stars is so impersonal.

I want to improve this and will launch a Book DNA review format soon.

With this format, we go further and try to define why people love that book so we can better match readers with books. I am desperate for this feature as I want to find books through these attributes (sneak peek here).

I’ve run out of authors and need more.

I’ve run out of authors within many subgenres, and I need to grow more.

The internet (and capitalism) tends to create a winner-takes-all market, and we need to fight this to get a new and bigger generation of authors. I don’t want to help grow the next Michael Connelly; I want to help grow the next 100 Michael Connelly’s in every subgenre.

How can I help new authors sell enough books to stay motivated and write more?

How can I help authors who are getting good reviews get more and more publicity without having to spend 20 hours a week spewing out nonsense on social media?

How can I spot trending books and push them to readers who will love that book (not just like), thus helping word-of-mouth spread?

What can I do to help authors work full-time on their writing? How do you do that in this modern age when a monopoly controls the industry and publishing is struggling so badly?

Books are the best part of humanity, and selling them like toothpaste is a war crime 🫢.

When I look for a new book online, it feels soulless. Online bookstores sell books like toothpaste or powdered gravy mix, and something about that is profoundly wrong. 

Books are magic.

Books are imagination fuel. 

Books change how we see the world.

Books change the direction of our lives.

Books transport us across time and space. 

Books let us see the world through another person's eyes and emotions. 

I believe they are one of the biggest net positives in the world. 

Carl Sagan said it best in Cosmos:

How can I help readers find books at the exact time they need them most in their lives?

How can I build an experience that sells books in a way that reflects how magical they are?

How can you build the magic of discovery and exploration into a screen?

Books build better people and increase our appreciation of complexity 😵‍💫.

Show me someone who loves to read, and I’ll show you someone who is likely only an asshole 5% of the time (an acceptable level IMO).

Sure, your boss might be a neo-nazi who loves reading about the newest conspiracy theory, but statistically, people who read “have higher empathy, better social ability, have better perspective, and a clearer understanding of human nature” (study 1, study 2, study summary 3, and more).

The more people read, the better results for all of us.

What is Shepherd cooking in August? 

Improving the 2024 "3 favorite reads" of the year program.

We've started working on the new and improved version of our "3 favorite reads" of the year program for 2024. You can read a full breakdown of what we are improving here. 

This work will take us through August & September. 

The exciting thing about this update is that it lays the groundwork for us to launch many additional formats once we get this base in place. 

Launching book series pages.

We are working on book series pages with the aim to launch these in September. We will start slow as we might need to improve some things on our backend for how we build these. 

Here is a quick preview screenshot; I'll share more next month!

Wanted: Courageous and scrappy authors who want to build an indie book website that helps your fellow authors sell books. Join Shepherd's membership program on this hazardous and long journey, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. 

August Roadmap Update

What are we building now?

• User accounts for Shepherd.com (99% done)

• We are working to switch the "favorite reads of 2024" to the new user system. This will make it easier for us to handle the big end-of-year burst and allow us to open the awards to readers. It will also be the first feature using our new Book DNA review format. (15% done)

• Add book series pages to Shepherd. (0% done)

What are we building after that?

• Switching the Book Boost program for Founding Members to provide persistent exposure for their books as a perk to thank them for their continued support. And expanding our overall author advertising program so that we can get rid of some of the display ads on Shepherd. 

And then?

• Expanding our bookshelves to improve discoverability and how they work.

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

After that? 🤪

• Adding interesting facts & stories to help authors bump into readers in more cool ways. 

• Expanding to allow readers to use our new Book DNA review format with any book. As part of this, we will also look to include all books in our database and what that might look like. 

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For July 2024:

• We had 237,000+ visitors.

• We had 17,000+ 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, and sales stats page.

What else is going on?

Moving chaos... 

Things are still pretty chaotic, and I am in the USA until August 25. We cleaned out a storage unit, and now we are visiting our families. I am looking forward to getting home to France and back to normal routines (and finish unpacking).  

Meetup with an author (also named Ben)!

I met up with Ben Gartner in Boulder last week. Ben has been incredibly supportive of what we are building with Shepherd, and it was great to chat face-to-face :)

What am I reading?

I just finished...

• A fantastic historical fiction about the Baltic Crusades: it is book 2 in the series and has yet to be published, but I will share it when it is!

• Blitzed - A great book about all the drugs the German soldiers and Nazi party were doing in WW2 (and Hitler specifically). The story gets more and more insane as you dig in. There is some debate over the research and interpretation, but the ideas are very interesting. 

I am reading...

• Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World is a fascinating account of a group that is part of our DNA. Yet we know little about them because they left little physical evidence. This book is back in France, but I look forward to finishing it once I get home.

• A Pilgrimage to Eternity - I love books about pilgrimage routes, and this one has been lovely so far. I did part of this route on my bike a few years ago.

• Daughter’s War is book two of the Blacktongue Thief fantasy series. Book One was one of my favorite fantasy books of the last few years. This one is slower so far, as nothing happens in the first 60% of the book. It is a beautiful world, though, and fantastic writing. I am still chugging through this one.

Thanks, Ben

P.S. My son and I on a hike in beautiful Colorado!

Do you like what we are doing?

I need your help. Will you join our Founding Member program for $50 a year to help me create a better book website for readers and authors?

How do we help authors like you?

In 2023, Shepherd has helped 5 million visitors find new books and connect with authors like you. I want to do more!

We have a two-pronged strategy to help authors in the coming years. 

1. Shepherd will create features to help authors get their books in front of the most likely readers for their book (and do so in a way that delights readers). 

2. Shepherd will create a platform for authors and book lovers to build a fan base around book recommendations. This is great for readers and will create thousands of book recommendation channels for authors to reach different segments of readers. 

• Here are my longer thoughts on how I plan to do this.

• And why I am using a big chunk of my savings to get this started. 

• And a timeline showing our history toward this goal!

What are some of the perks of joining?

Founding Members get things like:

• A special area on the front page promotes them and their book lists. 

• A special Book Boost ad to promote one of their books (soon, this will be persistent instead of the current 60-day burst once a year). 

I am working to build out a dedicated spot to promote Founding Member's new books and more!

I am aiming to launch two new formats in 2024.

Meet readers by...

1. Sharing interesting facts and selling more books.

2. Introducing your character and selling more books. 

You can sign up here to take part.