Today’s edition covers:

• Goodreads but smarter: What is the timeline for launching our app?

• How is Shepherd funded? We dropped from 815 to 778 members.

• Need book marketing help? Let’s do a call.

• October roadmap & traffic updates

• Ben's updates and reading list

Fun Size! 🦥

• An author has a great post about appearing on one of the biggest podcasts in the world and selling no books. Jane Friedman broke this down in her paid newsletter with nuance (as it isn't straightforward).

• Tom MCallister has a great breakdown on the writing life with major and indie publishers. I recommend this article if you are wondering about agents, big publishers, and small publishers. Helpful comments as well.

• Anonymously ask Ben a question and he will answer it in the next newsletter edition.

• We now have 4,710 book series published on the website, and we are working to add thousands more. If you want us to add your book series, please email [email protected], and we will bump it to the top of the list.

What are your favorite three reads of 2025? 🥳

• Submit your picks here.

• How does this help me promote my book? Details here.

Goodreads but smarter…

Reminder: What are we creating?

We are building a full app for readers where you can:

• Bring your to-be-read pile to life with smart, automatic organization

• Keep private notes on books you’ve read (or want to read)

• Build a profile of your Book DNA (based on what you love in books)

• Get deeply personalized recommendations based on your Book DNA.

• Celebrate the books you love and help other readers discover them (and help your favorite authors).

Details and screenshots here.

What is the timeline for launching our app?

First, we are going to build an MVP with the core features (desktop only, with mobile apps to follow).

What are the basics we are building first?

• Expand our book database to millions of books (currently at 99,288).

• Add a to-be-read list where you can browse books you are thinking about reading (and manage them).

• Log books you read or do not finish.

What are we doing right now?

1. Coding the frontend UX you see above for that limited feature set.

2. Building the infrastructure to handle millions of books in our database.

3. Planning all the logic for how this will work.

What comes next and when?

Once Marton and I finalize the logic, he will start building the backend code to make the basic features mentioned.

We are aiming to have an MVP ready in Q1 2026. I’ll have more specifics there as we finish the frontend code and start building the backend.

How will this roll out to actual users?

Once we are ready for testing, I will add 10 beta users and do a series of emails and Zoom sessions with them.

What are we trying to do at this stage?

• If a core feature is needed, we add it. 

• If a core feature isn’t working as they want it, we fix it. 

• If something in the UX is confusing, we fix it. 

• If a feature is dead weight, we remove it (but hopefully we don’t overbuild). 

And during this period, we will start adding the features we need to delight users, also known as the minimal lovable product (some tech lingo). 😀

What do we think that might include?

• Goodreads import process (required)

• Improved genre/topic accuracy (high confidence)

• Smart automatic TBR sorting (high confidence)

• Discover books via your Book Twins and Book DNA (high confidence)

• Custom user folders (TBD)

• Book series tracking (TBD)

• Reading progress logger (high confidence)

• Edition tracking (high confidence)

• And more…

As we test features, we will add more beta users who are willing to provide feedback (via email and Zoom).

When will we launch it publicly?

Once readers are using it often, and saying, “This is better than Goodreads” or “This is better than my note/spreadsheet.”

We are aiming to hit this mark in late summer / early Fall 2026.

Reminder: Here is my post on how this app helps authors.

Reminder: Anonymously ask Ben a question, and he will answer it in the next newsletter edition.

How is Shepherd funded?

80% of our revenue, which keeps us alive and fighting the enshittification of the internet and world, comes from paying members (the other 20% is affiliate advertising income).

We dropped from 815 to 778 paying members this month.

This is the first month we ended with fewer members than when we started. That really bums me out, as that is how we fund our small team and our server costs (I work for free and have since day 1).

Since our launch on April 21st, 2021, we have had 14.7 million readers find new books and new authors. We do that in a way that helps authors promote their own book, and you can even see how much traffic we send to authors each month. This is not Oprah traffic for one book; this is a platform designed to help all authors.

For one coffee a month, you can invest in a team that is trying to help authors every single day.

☕ Our membership is $50 a year, and it comes with some fantastic perks!

• We put your book in front of 100 of the most likely readers every month with our Book Boost perk.

• Members can book a 30-minute slot for personalized advice and marketing support every Thursday.

• And soon our new book spotlight will be ready! It will feature your new book for 6 months on all our "new book" pages (and longer for other plans).

These are not Oprah-level events, but they are nice perks that support a platform already spending every day building features to freely help authors.

• Our five-book recommendation format helps you bump into readers with your book.

• Our three favorite reads of the year format to help you bump into readers and excite your fan base.

• And all the work we do to get you in front of new readers every single day!

• And all the upcoming features we are building, including our full app for readers as we add TBD tracking, book logging, and more!

Need book marketing help? Let’s do a call.

This perk is normally only for members, but if you are thinking of joining, you can book a time using the link below.

I hope that after we chat, you will join as a member and help us build Shepherd 😀. Membership starts at $50 a year, and every dollar goes toward creating this platform. Plus, you can book additional calls as part of the perks.

Recently, I’ve talked with authors about the following…

• Reviewed their Amazon listing for what could be improved

• Reviewed their book cover and how that fits in with their genre

• Talked about possible outside-the-box book marketing they could be doing

• Reviewed book marketing options and what is/isn’t working

• Talk about pay-per-click ads on Amazon and Facebook, and what to try

• I walked them through the full-reader app we are building and how that will help authors in the long term.

• Explained how aspects of Shepherd work and answered questions they have about the different formats.

Click here to find and book a time in November!
*If there isn’t a good time for you, please email me and I’ll find a spot.

My October Roadmap Update (For Authors)

What did we ship?

• We finished adding email automation for our favorite three reads of the year event (100% done). This is needed so that I don’t have to do it manually and maintain a separate suite of expensive tools.

• We moved off Algolia to Typesense. This will help us save money and scale better as we grow (100% done).

• We redesigned our CDN to better scale as we grow and roll out our full app for readers. We moved 95% of our activity from Cloudinary to Cloudflare/Google. Not only does this save us money, but it also allows us to separate the cost of storing book cover images from the bandwidth to serve them (100% done).

What are we working on?

• We are improving our books-like engine (75% done). I’ll share more on this as we finish this up.

• We are upgrading our Book Boost perk for members and adding a paid marketing program for authors who want it. This will also add a stats email for our Book Boost ad for members. (15% done)

• Phase 1 of our full reader app (like Goodreads but smarter and more personalized). This is a massive project, and we are working to launch the MVP. We are currently working on building a full book database and developing frontend elements. (5% done)

What are we building after that?

• We will add personalization to the favorite three reads of the year program. This will make it more interactive for readers and better surface readers who read like them.

• 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!

Browse our full roadmap here.

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For last month:

• We had 151,000+ visitors.

• We had 10,000+ clicks to bookstore partners this month. 

• Of those, 1,500+ were clicks to an author’s promoted book.

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

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

What else is going on?

My dad was in town, and we did a 7-day bike ride through Puglia, Italy. I ate so much focaccia pizza 😀. The ride was beautiful, apart from a very wet, windy, and cold first day! I can’t wait to do another bike trip in Italy (hopefully back to the North this time).

Unfortunately, I got a cold on the last day of our ride, and the flight home crushed my sinuses and knocked me out for a week. I am well now and happy to have my health. I hope all of you are doing well as we enter Fall.

What am I reading?

I just finished...

• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams - This is a FANTASTIC book about the negligence and abuse that Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg have inflicted on society. Sarah was in the room with them at key moments, and I am so glad she wrote this. It is hard to put down, and I finished it in two days (my wife is almost done as well). I quit FB after the 2016 election, and I think they will go down in history as being worse than Big Tobacco on our health. Thanks to Claire for the recommendation! 

I am reading...

• Oscar Wars - This is my brother’s pick for our family book club, and so far, it is incredibly boring as it covers the history of the Motion Picture Academy. Hopefully, it gets more exciting soon, as I want movie gossip 😀.

• The Boutan Caliphate - This is book five in the LitRPG series A Soldier’s Life (which I find super addictive). I love this series and I can’t explain why. It feels a bit like a Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court, but with more exploration.

Thanks, Ben

P.S. From my recent bike ride with my dad in beautiful Puglia 😃