Fixing some bookshelves bugs, and almost ready to start building the full app for readers.
And on vacation for a few weeks...
Every 3 weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com.
Join the rebellion and help me create the indie book platform readers and authors deserve! Three hurrahs for our 800+ members who keep us independent and fund new features. Readers and authors can become members (both get special perks, and more perks are coming as we grow).
I am feeling…
I just finished a wonderful month biking and working in the Black Forest. And now my family has joined me in Belgium for a family vacation (I’ll be off most of the coming weeks). We have a lot of fun planned 😀.
Bookshelves are launched 🚀
Authors and readers found some bugs we missed, and we are working to fix all of them (we are still working to improve the infinite scroll, as it is buggy). I am happy to see this feature live and being used daily by readers!
Next, we are working toward improving our topic/genre accuracy, as the data publishers give us is often a mess. At that time, I want to add themes, tropes, and moods.
I’ve got more info on how we plan to do that here (in our roadmap).
Updates on our full reader app!
User testing has gone well, and we are almost ready to build the frontend! I’ve got a few more tests I want to run, and we will start building the MVP.
Behind the scenes, we are working to build a database of “all” books and evaluating whether we can use data from Open Library or if it is too messy. I hope to share more information on that progress in a few weeks.
Book series update!
We’ve published 4,3036 book series. We have 2,598 in our queue that we are working on (I am sure more will pop up). Please email forauthors@shepherd.com if you want your book series added.
I want to build a dashboard for authors, but we need to reach 1,500 paying author members to afford the required work.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
Marton and I did some great biking during my stay in Germany! Marton built everything on Shepherd for the first few years and still advises on key decisions. We had a good time biking and eating delicious German cake 🍰.
What am I reading now?
I just finished…
I am working my way through Harry Sidebottom’s Warrior of Rome series, but I am stuck, as something is wrong with Harry’s listings, and I can’t buy the eBook for book #7. I hope he can fix that, as I want to finish them! It is like his publisher broke his book series entry, which is likely impacting his sales.
I am reading...
I am reading book #6 of the Sun Eater series, which is so good. It is one of my all-time favorite science fiction books. The final book in the series comes out on November 18th…
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933 - 1945, by Milton Mayer. I am almost done with this one. I’ve been doing a long-running deep dive into the rise of fascism historically this year. This book has been disturbing to read; so much of what the Germans say sounds similar to what I hear from many Americans. I should finish it this week.
Have a great weekend,
Ben
P.S. A little German town in the Black Forest…
