Building Shepherd - The pain of implementing genres :)
Discovering a new book should be a magical experience where the search is part of the fun. That is what we are creating at Shepherd.
Summary: September 5th to September 16th
The last 2 weeks have been devoted to 3 things:
Nail down the next batch of work.
Work on the genre and age specs.
Launching a members program!
Nail down the next batch of work.
The developer and I sat down to discuss how we want to implement book edition data. It adds a lot of complication, but it is a step we need to take. Doing this will help us with many future features and improve our efficiency.
The developer is still looking over everything, but the next round of work will most likely focus on automating 90% of our book creation process and adding book editions as a concept.
Once we finish that, we will add the individual book pages, "books like" pages, "book lists this book appears on" pages, and the new "explore this book" feature.
Once I have an ETA on those things, I'll share it.
Work on the genre and age specs.
I've started to work on how we will implement the genre and age group data in Shepherd. It is a lot of banging my head on walls and moaning softly.
I am 99% sure that I will be making my own genres and then mapping Thema and Bisac data to my genres.
Why?
Ultimately I want to handle a more diverse array of genres than Bisac and Thema allow.
Bisac and Thema are a bit boring IMO. They will help us seed the data, but ultimately I want to allow for more creativity around genres.
Major complexity arises in mapping data to the different ways I want to surface it for readers.
For example, if Thema tells us it is a chapter book, do we make a chapter book a type of book, a genre, or an age range? Or all 3? This type of stuff is why librarians go insane (and why you would be wise to fear their power 🤪).
Launched a membership program :)
Authors and readers have asked me how they can support the project, and I created a program for Founding Members to do just that.
I started Shepherd because I love to read. As I’ve gotten to know more authors, I realized they’re all looking for ways to sell their books that don’t leave them at the mercy of the biggest retailers and won’t put them in the poor house.
What does Shepherd offer authors?
It puts your book in front of readers who are a perfect match for your book.
It shares your passion, expertise, and voice, which increases interest in you and your book.
Data-driven methodology with a very transparent founder (me).
It’s 100% free to authors and readers.
More great features are coming for authors and readers.
I've got details on the perks for authors and readers.
If you have any feedback on this page, let me know, or let me know what perks you would like to see as a reader or author (the actual membership features will be coming in 2023).
Working on the 2023 roadmap.
I have started working on in-depth sketches of the following features
Personalized book recommendation newsletter
Adding book series data as a concept
Favorite book of the year feature
Meet the character feature
I need to sort those out, so I know what I need to create designs for and decide the priority for 2023.
I have a very ambitious roadmap for 2023, and I know only 60% of what I have will get done unless we have enough money to hire a full-time developer (in addition to the current part-time developer).
I choose which features to build by looking at which ones maximize reader delight, grow our traffic, and grow finances. We are on a good track to break even on our current costs in 2023, but it would be even better if I could hire a full-time developer to help speed this process up.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
We had a blast camping a few weeks ago; my son loved it :). We made cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and smores and "played" with fire.
What am I reading?
The Bane of Gods by Alaric Longward (this is book 5 in a Roman-based historical fiction).
I just finished The Coldest Case by Martin Walker (one of my favorite book series) and Forge of Frost by James C. Duncan (which is book 3 in a series with a cool take on Viking history).
