Building Shepherd - Back from vacation, book marketing podcast, and more!
Shepherd makes exploring and discovering new books fun while helping authors get their books in front of the most likely readers. If you want to support our mission, please join us as a founding member here.
Summary: October 3rd to November 4th
I had a fantastic vacation! :) 🌴📚
I biked 1,000km along the Via Francigena route in Italy and had a blast.
I read 25 books, ate a wide array of amazing food, and enjoyed an utterly beautiful countryside. It was a really nice mental reset. The weather was insane. It was warm and sunny, and I only had two days of rain. I guess this is the new normal until the gulf stream collapses ("fun" times).
Podcast: How to market your book + more
Elena Mutonone had me on her podcast, and we talked about marketing your book, self-publishing, and Shepherd.
I had a lot of fun, and you can listen here.
What happened over the last 4 weeks?
While I was on vacation...
Our part-time developer finished adding the concept of book editions to Shepherd. I just need to test everything and do some manual clean up for conflicting data. Now, he is working to improve some of our automation and add the individual book page (more details on the roadmap).
Our part-time designer sent me mockups for the upcoming genre/age filters, book series pages, and fact pages. I need to send him some revisions and get those moving.
What am I focused on over the next month?
I have a lot to catch up on. While on vacation, I kept 95% of emails/tickets answered as there are some things only I can do, given we are a small team. But I just ignored a lot of the big stuff, and now I need to catch up on that.
As I get up to speed, my highest priorities are:
Nail down the genre and age group spec so we can do that after the current batch of work. This is a very complex addition, and I am about 50% done with this. I am so excited about getting this out in the wild.
Nail down the roadmap for the first six months of 2023. I am close, but I still want to play with a few concepts as I map this out.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
My wife and son return on Monday from their trip to the USA to visit the grandparents. I am very excited to see them!
What am I reading?
Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton (one of my all-time favorite sci-fi writers)
The Prisoner of Paradise by Rob Samborn. It is a dual timeline thriller set in Italy, about half done and digging it. I love the Venetian setting :).
Some pictures from my trip!
