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Shepherd - Preview our personalized book recommendation newsletter for readers
Ben Fox
May 05, 2024
What's new for May?
Preview the personalized book recommendation newsletter!
Watch April's Zoom event (roadmap + author Q&A)
April roadmap + traffic updates
Ben's updates and reading list...
Funsize:
I did a fun podcast with Mike Consol about what we are building for authors/readers and why I am so focused on serendipity as a concept.
The Guardian had a great mention of us -> The experts: librarians on 20 easy, enjoyable ways to read more brilliant books.
There are some fun articles floating around the book industry right now.
Status: What are we working on for authors?
Improving our audiobook links - We are trying to make these only appear when an author has an audiobook. And make the audiobook links go directly to the audiobook. This is harder to do than it sounds.
A personalized book recommendation email for readers - This will be yet another place we feature your book list based on authors, books, and genres a reader loves.
Adding interesting facts as a marketing method - This is a way for authors to connect with readers directly. You can view the early design mockups at the bottom of this page.
Adding book series pages - This will show an author's entire book series and allow Shepherd to use this concept all over the website. The design is done, and I am writing the spec for the developer now.
Preview the personalized book recommendation newsletter!
(Reminder: The goal of this feature is to delight readers by giving them a weekly book recommendation email based on their favorite books/authors/genres. And help authors by giving us more places to show off their lists and books.)
We still have at least 6 to 8 weeks of work, but I wanted to share an early preview to see where we are headed.
What does this video show?
It shows me picking 3 of my favorite books/authors and 3 of my favorite genres.
Then, the My Book DNA feature returns 9 book recommendation lists based on those favorites.
Next, we must build the email signup step so readers can get personalized recommendations like this every week. Plus, build all the supporting elements to make this work (user accounts, algo to run the matching, email design, etc).
Here is a short video of the process so far (no sound).
I will share more as we build more 🔨.
Watch April's Live Zoom Event
I did a live Zoom event last month and you can watch it on YouTube here:
What do I cover?
Our roadmap for the next 12 to 24 months (for readers, Founding Members, and authors).
And I answer a ton of Q&A from authors.
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.
What are we building now?
User accounts for Shepherd.com
Personalized book recommendation email
Improving our audiobook preview links
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.
What am I working on?
Building a spec for the developer to publish book series pages.
Researching our Book DNA review format with readers.
Researching how I can improve our genre/topic accuracy. This is a HUGE project, but my goal is to improve the accuracy of this system later this year. The system publishers use is inaccurate and missing so many genres. I am looking at how to pull in more genres and improve both systems.
What are the designer and I working on?
Playing with some new ads for the Book Boost program to increase engagement.
Some design improvements for the book recommendation list.
All the design work needed to expand the bookshelves as a discovery point for readers.
Finishing the interesting facts/stories design.
Improving the book section design to expand it.
Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales
For April 2024:
We had 306,000+ visitors.
We had 21,000+ 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.
Any frustrations?
Google.
Google updated its search index and has destroyed a vast swath of the indie web. It also hurt Shepherd; with this update, we've lost 50% of our traffic from Google.
If you want an excellent breakdown of why your Google search results are so bad, check out this breakdown by HouseFresh, which explains why a lot of great websites will soon be shutting down: https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/
We will get the traffic back in the long run, but I am deeply worried about Google and its ability to detect quality websites. I never thought I would say it, but Bing is starting to do a better job in the search engine game. It will be interesting to see if Google can recover from the mess they made.
What else is going on?
I am in the middle of training for a 1,000km bike trip in mid-May. I will bike across Spain on old gravel roads and into France (over the Pyrenees).
I did a 100km+ ride on Monday and promptly got sick the day after. My son was diagnosed with a mycoplasma infection, so I may have picked that up on our father/son biking weekend. I am feeling better today, and hopefully, I will be back to training tomorrow.
What am I reading?
I just finished...
Book 5 of the Wheel of Time series (one of my favorite series of all time).
I am reading...
Rereading the entire Wheel Of Time series - This is one of my favorite book series, and I decided to reread it for some comfort food.
M: Son of the Century - About Mussolini. I am ~65% done. I am digging it, but it is slow reading with much to consider. I'll pick it up when I need a break from my fiction rampage.
Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World - This is a fascinating account of a group that is part of our DNA, yet we don't know much about them because they didn't leave much physical evidence.
Thanks, Ben
P.S. My son and I went on a bike weekend up North (Portugal).
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?
In 2023, 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.
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).
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.
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 to use our new book launch program to help you meet readers! And they are featured on our frontpage! I've got more perks coming as well.
And I am aiming to launch two new formats in 2024.
Meet readers by...
You can sign up here to take part.