Back from my vacation! What do we have planned for our upcoming 2025 best books of the year event?
And some updates on the full app for readers.
Every 3 weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com.
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I am feeling…
I had a great solo biking adventure! I spent 3 weeks biking from Belgium down through Switzerland and eventually ended up in Nimes, France. I rode 1,269 km with ~16,000m of elevation gain. I’m a bit tired, but happy to be home and excited to be working on the new app for readers 😃.
What do we have planned for our upcoming 2025 best books of the year event?
The 2025 picks open up on October 1st, 2025, and we’ve got a few minor changes.
#1 - We automated the email notifications (big chunk of work off my back)
Previously, I had to send these manually, and I am excited that we are automating these. We will notify authors who have participated in previous years on October 1st, once the event is live, and readers who have participated in previous years on January 1st.
#2 - Towards the end of the year, we will add personalized results for each reader.
It will allow readers to pick a book they loved and see what books readers who loved that book also loved.
Here is a rough mockup showing how this will work. So if they picked the book “James,” it will share books that readers who loved James also loved, as well as show off their favorite reads of the year lists.
Should be fun 😃!
Updates on our full reader app!
We’ve gotten some great feedback, and we are working to build the MVP. I’ll keep updates coming as we get closer and closer to sharing that with our beta users.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
My dad is in town visiting! We have some fun planned here, and we are going to do a 7-day bike ride together in Italy next month! Otherwise, I am working to catch up after my nice vacation.
What am I reading now?
I just finished…
I finished books four and 5 of the Kingsbridge series by Ken Follett. He is a fantastic writer, and I love how he throws you into a really distinct era with each book. The prequel was good, but not great. The Armor of Light was fantastic as always. I wonder if he will do any more as we get closer to the modern era?
I am reading...
The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi. This is book 7 in the series Old Man’s War. I reread the series on my bike ride so I could read this new entry (I think I had previously only read the first 2 in the series before I lost track of it). It's been excellent so far, and it's fantastic to be back in this universe. I like how he jumps around to different characters within it.
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933 - 1945, by Milton Mayer. I am almost done with this one. I had to leave it at home during my bike ride, so it has been paused…
Have a great week,
Ben
P.S. An amazing stop in France from my long bike ride.
