Rough few weeks with many emergencies.
We are now on Substack as Twitter is shutting down Revue...
Every two weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com. Shepherd makes exploring and discovering new books fun (while helping authors get their books in front of the most likely readers). Please join us as a founding member if you want to support us.
Summary: December 5th to December 16th
The last 2 weeks have been rough.
I did not finish what I wanted to finish before the holiday slow down. And I had a bunch of weird emergencies all pop up simultaneously.
A key software provider breaks a key feature we use. I had to stop everything and spin up tests on a competitor while urging them to fix it (still waiting). Ultimately I think this is good, as I like the competitor better. But it took half a week to set up and $1,200 in added costs with the new provider.
An analytics provider told me that a usage warning was a bug. But then figured out it wasn’t a bug and we were about to hit our plan’s limit. This created a mad scramble to optimize our usage, so we don’t have to upgrade to the next plan. They took care of us and things are good now.
Twitter decided to shut down Revue, and I had to move everything over to Substack. Luckily Substack makes that easy, as that could have been painful. Twitter is really doing a good job with its random decision-making processes (sarcasm).
I screwed up our CRM and had to spend a few hours fixing it. And I still have 2,500+ duplicate contact issues I have to through step by step to finish fixing it (long story).
All of the above took my time away from working on new features, which added to my frustration. Oh well, slowly but surely!
Click-to-meet is not working…
Click-to-meet was an idea I had to help connect readers with the authors making the recommendations on the bookshelves. For example, on the WW1 bookshelf, you can use it to click and learn more about the person making the recommendation for the book you are looking at.
So you might be browsing and see this book:
Then you can click that and see who the author is and their book…
Unfortunately, this isn’t working.
The CTR is ~.04% (which is basically no clicks).
I did some user testing, and here is what I heard from users:
Readers don’t realize the recommendations are from authors unless they are reading very closely. When they do find out they are super excited.
Readers fail to connect the name of the person making the book recommendation to the click-to-meet element below the book.
So, I am working with the designer to revise the design/UX. How?
I want visitors to know these recommendations are from authors instantly. We need to make that clear as readers love that.
I want to instantly connect the user with the author’s list and make it clear that is where the recommendation came from.
So I am playing with something like this (a very early mockup).
I will share more as I test this on users and determine what will work better.
What else happened over the last 2 weeks?
The UX for filters is slowly coming together…
The designer and I are slowly honing in on a design we like.
What are the filters for? I want to help people find a book they want, so this gives them easy tools to select only fiction or nonfiction, other genres, or age groups.
Christmas slow down
Shepherd will run at 25% speed from December 19th through January 3rd. We will publish some new lists on the 19th and pick things back up in early January. I will be on holiday break from December 19th through the 31st.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
I just picked my mom and stepdad up from the airport today! I am super excited about them visiting for Christmas, as I haven’t seen them since 2019. I am looking forward to showing them our favorite city in Spain (Valencia).
I don’t know why but I’ve been down. That is pretty weird for me, and I am not sure if it was the winter gray in Portugal or what is behind that. It is getting better, and I am trying to make sure I am getting some rest and fun.
What am I reading?
The Prisoner of Paradise by Rob Samborn (almost done)
Starting soon -> Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton
As things calm down, I hope to read a lot in the coming weeks.
