Sneak peek of web designs for the "best books of the year" and updated frontpage.
Short week so not a long post...
Every two weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com.
Shepherd is like wandering around your favorite bookstore. We make exploring and discovering your next book magical (while helping authors get their books in front of the most likely readers). Please join us as a founding member to support our mission.
May 22nd to June 2nd
This is a short one as I am taking my son camping later today, and I was on 75% vacation for the week of May 22nd while visiting my brother.
What did I work on over the last 2 weeks?
Design work for the upcoming “best books of the year” format
Design work for integrating genre/age into the frontpage and improving it visually (and some pieces on how to integrate it sitewide)
A billion little things…
Best books of the year…
I shared more info on this upcoming format for authors in the last post here. And you can read more about this feature for authors and signup to take part.
Progress is going well, and we are starting to play with the combined results page.
For example, here is an early mockup of the combined result of the best 50 science fiction books read in 2023 and published in 2023 (this is the opening header we are playing with).
Updated frontpage…
We are starting to play with some improvements for this page visually. Plus, we are adding genre, age, and other types of integrations.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
I had a great visit with my brother the week of May 22nd in France. And I am leaving in a few hours to take my son camping for the weekend. I hope you have an equally fun weekend planned :)!
What am I reading?
The Hero’s Way by Tim Parks - I am almost done with this one, and it was a fantastic mix of pilgrimage and history. Tim and his wife follow Garibaldi’s retreat in 1849 after his failed defense of Rome against the French army.
Savage Peace - I need to finish this one, put it down, and haven’t picked it up in a few weeks, even though I love it. It is about the year right after WW1.
Thanks, Ben
P.S. Cannes, France, is beautiful!
