Shepherd - Preview our new search results pages!

Author

Ben Fox
October 11, 2023

What's new for October?

  1. We've already received 900+ submissions for your three favorite reads of the year! ðŸ¥³

  2. Preview the upcoming search results page.

  3. September traffic, clicks, and sales.

  4. Ben's updates and reading list...

Funsize:

We've already received 900+ submissions for your 3 favorite reads of the year! ðŸ¥³

That is amazing!!!

I currently have 150+ tickets that came in today, and I assume we have more submissions there.  

If you'd like to participate, reply and ask me for the Word doc Template. 

I am taking submissions until December 31st, and here is what the page will look like: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/ben-fox. 

If you signed up to be notified and didn't receive an email: I emailed everyone on September 30th, but many authors said they did not receive that email. I think it went to their spam folder, and I am sorry for the trouble. 

Now, the fun part! 

We are working to prep at least 1,000 submissions for the big opening launch on November 1st.

This is a considerable workload compared to an average month

Usually, we publish 200 to 300 book lists each month.

We are trying to publish at least 5x that number in October.

How does the process work? (for the curious)

  1. We get your email in Zendesk and mark it as a 3-favorite-reads submission. This sends it to the next step in the process. We also update your entry in the CRM to mark you as taking part. 

  2. We add your submission to our backend system and check for missing data. If anything is missing, we flag it, and Ben asks the author for the missing info. If nothing is missing, it goes to the Editor's queue. 

  3. While this is happening, we add every book you select to our backend system. This is 90% automated, but we must manually find a high-quality book cover on Google and double-check the information our automation pulls from our book API partner. 

  4. We edit your submission, check all the book links, and make sure everything looks good. Then, we send it to you to review.

  5. You tell us if you want any changes or if it is ready to be published. 

As you can imagine, this is time-intensive :)

I am currently bringing on a temporary editor to help. And we have made a lot of adjustments as we work to get through the big burst of submissions. 

The new search results pages.

After we finish the three favorite reads of the year development work, we will add the new book launch program (in October/November).

After that is complete, we will be working to update the front page and revamp the search function on the website. I believe we will complete that over November, December, and January, but I will know better in a few weeks. 

As part of this work to revamp search, we will build out full search results pages. This is a big improvement to our current modal system.

Here is what the new front page will look like!

Click here to browse our desktop design mockup (remember this is fake data).

The search box will look like this...

Here is what a search result would look like for a genre, topic, or age. 

We are still doing user testing, and this is 90% finished. Click here to browse our desktop design mockup (remember, this is all fake data).

Here is what a search result would look like for a book. 

We are still doing user testing, and this is 80% finished. Click here to browse our desktop design mockup (this is all fake data).

We are also working on a search result page for an author search. It is only 75% done, so I am not sharing a mockup yet. 

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For September:

  • We had 407,000+ visitors and 536,000+ pageviews. That is up 126% over the previous year. 

  • We sold ~$60,000 worth of books we can track. The actual number is higher; more info is on the link below. 

  • We had ~40,000 clicks to bookstore partners. I will have more detailed stats on outbound clicks soon. I need to build a collection process now that we have better raw data. 

Traffic from Google was flat again. That is part of the process, but it is frustrating (as search traffic has been flat since January). This will improve as I improve the website and add new features. 

For a big-picture perspective:

  • In 2022, we had 1.8 million visitors.

  • In 2023, we've already had 3.7 million visitors this year! Woohoo! 

What else is going on?

I am working crazy hours to get the 3-favorite-reads ready for everyone. So, not much else is going on. 

What am I reading?

Enjoy your week!
Ben

P.S. Picture from our summer holiday.

Do you like what we are doing?

I need your help. Can 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 the last 12 months, Shepherd has helped 5 million visitors find new books and connect with authors like you.

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. Not only is that great for readers, but it will create thousands of book recommendation channels for authors to reach different slices of readers. 

What are some of the perks of joining?

Founding Members get to use our new book launch program to help you meet readers! And once our new front page launches in January they will be featured there as well. 

And I am launching two new formats in 2024.

Meet readers by...

You can sign up here to take part.