Shepherd - Why is marketing a book so hard?

Author

Ben Fox
February 15, 2024

What's new for February?

  1. Why is marketing a book so hard? What do I recommend? How can it be improved?

  2. What's next for Shepherd?

  3. January traffic, clicks, and sales.

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

Funsize:

  • Read this fantastic case study that asks, "Can a professional book cover double your sales?" The short answer is yes, and they break it down into several big genres. 

  • I wanted to send a huge thank you to Serita! Serita has been our part-time editor for the last 2.5 years and helped build Shepherd into what it is today. She is heading onward to work on her business, Monita Tequila, which I highly recommend if you love Tequila (direct sales coming soon)!

  • Please welcome Lauren, our new part-time editor, who will be helping Frances with editing. You can meet our entire team here :). 

  • I did a podcast interview with Beth and Lisa at Writers With Wrinkles. I had a great time chatting with them, and I talked about what we are working on for authors and our Book DNA feature we are working towards. 

  • Check out The Wordling newsletter, as it might be a good source of info for writers (and news from the publishing industry). 

I finally had the time to write this all out (please excuse any editing mistakes, as I've only done two editing passes, and I write like an illiterate chimp after 3 pots of coffee). 

This reflects where my head is currently at. I will update, change, and evolve this as I talk to authors, readers, and publishers.

Bullet points of what is in this article... 

  • Why is marketing a book so hard?

    • No money for marketing.

    • Low demand + high competition = high purchase barrier.

    • Online book discovery is a wasteland for authors.

  • What do I recommend for book marketing?

    • Do you want to do marketing?

    • If you only do 1 thing, what do I recommend?

    • If you only do 2 things, what do I recommend?

    • If you only do 3 things, what do I recommend?

    • What else can I do?

  • How can book marketing be improved?

  • How am I working to improve book marketing with Shepherd?

I'd love to hear what you think, so if you are the one person who reads the entire thing, let me know what you agree/disagree with :).

What's next for Shepherd?

I am not sure yet :)

We only have the financial resources to build 1 big feature this year (the more Founding Members, the more I can build).

Big factors: what features align with our mission, can we afford to build, and will have the greatest impact on growing our revenue to afford a full-time developer? 

I am thinking about what feature would cause readers to create an account with us and build a deeper relationship with Shepherd. 

  • What feature keeps readers returning to Shepherd once a month?

  • What feature gets readers so excited that 5% of them join our membership program to support what we are building + perks? i.e., what excites readers enough that I can attract 500 to 1,000 people paying $50 a year to support us?

I am leaning toward a weekly personalized book recommendation email for readers. Readers would pick genres, topics, books, and authors they love. And we would recommend book recommendation lists that match their interests every week. I am looking at how quickly we could roll out a test. 

I am also looking at how we could build a community of readers with discussion boards, Q&A options with authors, etc. This scares me, though, as building a new community is incredibly hard, especially with Reddit and other competition. I've got some pretty unique ideas that could set us apart, but it is a bit risky as I am not sure how many visitors reading the website would convert into "active community members."

I've got some other wacky ideas I am considering. The strongest contenders get a round of testing on readers (friends and family, then user interviews with random people). 

What about smaller improvements?

I am revamping our engagement stats to see better what is working and what is not working on the current website. Then, I can figure out what makes the most sense to improve upon this year. 

  • What can we do to improve genre/topic accuracy? I'd love to improve this, but it is challenging (click the link for a breakdown). I also have some surprises I'd like to do.

  • I want to improve the "book-like" pages accuracy this year. This is one of the most popular sections with readers, and I want to improve the accuracy of our recommendations. 

  • I want to improve bookshelves to better match what readers expect when they land. Right now, we give every reader a power tool when they are just looking for an assembled bird feeder. 

  • I want to ship book series pages and integrate them into the website. 

  • I want to ship some minor improvements to the book page header to make it more fun. 

  • I want to highlight which authors picked the books that appear on the "best books of the year" listings. So we need to update that format (and we are playing with design ideas on that now). And some small changes to the best-books-of-the-year based on feedback I got from readers. 

I want to add two new formats and bring those into the website:

I need to do more research with readers...

Feel free to send me advice/thoughts from your POV as a reader. As a reader, what would you pay $25 to $50 a month to be part of? What feature would you love to use?  

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. 

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For January:

  • We had 442,000+ visitors.

  • We had ~30,000 clicks to bookstore partners.

  • We are on track to sell $800,000 to $1,200,000 worth of book sales this year. That is likely quite a bit higher, but we don't get credit for many of those sales (which is okay -> details on why here). Remember we only get a small percentage of any sales we generate. 

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). 

What else is going on?

My brother was part of a project that won many awards at the 2023 Shanghai 48-hour film project! Watch the short film here; it is a very cool concept! 

I got sick for a week at the start of February. It has been a crappy start to the year, healthwise. I am also very tired of the rain & gray of winter. I need sunshine and bike rides. Just 2 more weeks and things will improve in March... (insert deep breathing)...

What am I reading?

  • I just finished The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes. His last book (I am Pilgrim) was one of my three favorite reads in 2023 and a stunning spy/military thriller. The new book is fantastic, but at 75% it takes an odd turn toward sci-fi that didn't fit the book or series. 

  • M: Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati. This is about Mussolini's rise to power in Italy and I dig the weird format. I am ~33% done and understand 5000% less about Italian history. I've read several history books about Italy in the last few years, and somehow, I know less than what I began. What a beguiling amazing place. How did this become one country?!?!?

Thanks, Ben

P.S. My son and I stayed in an old windmill in Portugal for a weekend in Jan. 

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 aiming to launch two new formats in 2024.

Meet readers by...

You can sign up here to take part.