Updates on personalized book newsletter, book series, and the upcoming TBR app.
Lots of little updates!
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 922 Founding Members who keep us independent and fund new features. Readers and authors can become Founding Members (both get special perks, and more perks are coming as we grow).
I am feeling…
I am home from my Ireland trip and feeling good as France is sunny and warm. I’ve had some great bike rides where I finally don’t need a jacket! Woohoo!
Big update for the personalized book recommendation newsletter!
Reminder: We have a personalized book newsletter where readers can input their favorite books, authors, genres, and topics. Then we email them book ideas based on their desired frequency (weekly to every 4 weeks).
This feature has been in beta testing, and we just made some big updates based on everyone’s feedback (check your account here):
Readers can change the frequency from weekly to every 2, 3, or 4 weeks.
Readers can change the variables that go into the selection (so you can update the books, genres, authors, etc., on which it is built).
We now have 1,200+ subscribers who receive personalized book recommendations every week. We are seeing high engagement, and I am pleased with the progress.
~60% open rate (although probably higher as email providers mess with this stat).
Around 15% to 20% of readers click on at least one book recommendation list.
Our CTR rate to bookstores is around 5x our regular traffic.
The next step is to roll out integration throughout Shepherd later this year. We are going to try an exit pop-up like this based on the type of books they are looking for:
And play with a footer spot to raise awareness about it:
The most significant improvement we can still make is improving the system's genre and topic accuracy. I’ve got more information on how we plan to do that in our roadmap. I’m not sure on the ETA for that piece, but as soon as we upgrade that system, it will instantly improve everything here.
Book series update!
We made it easier to add books that are only on Amazon, and we are working to add all our members’ and supporters ’ book series to our system. We’ve added ~1,000 so far, and I will start emailing all our authors who submitted their book series soon (waiting until we get them all in). Then we have another 6,000 to add 😃.
One unresolved problem is that Amazon’s API doesn’t give us the book description. So if the book is not in a book database outside of Amazon, we cannot get it right now. I am looking at how we might solve that in the future; for now, those books will have blank book descriptions until we find a fix.
We are also working on a fix to make the books-like system work if we don’t have a recommendation yet for a book in the series.
TBR app updates!
We are making solid progress on the mockups for the app to bring your to-be-read pile to life. I am feeling a bit better about how we are presenting the books in your TBR pile.
And make it easy to choose which one you are reading.
The next step will be testing the mockups with readers and seeing their thoughts.
And the reading log page is one I am loving, as it feels good.
What is going on outside of Shepherd?
We had a fantastic time in Ireland. There was amazing food, beautiful nature, and tons of history. It was especially great to see my good friends and their new baby.
What am I reading now?
I just finished…
The Century Series by Ken Follett: I loved this series. It follows five families through WWI and over the next 100 years in Russia, the UK, and the USA. I love how the books weave significant historical events into their day-to-day lives. It was beautiful and an excellent overview of this incredible time. The rise of fascism was incredibly disturbing as we watch a lot of our modern safeguards crumble away.
Book 4 of the A Soldier’s Life series is a LitRPG book (which I’ve been trying more of since I read DGC). It plops a character down in a world based on Ancient Rome but with magic, and I love it. It is like a combination of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court with fantasy. I read book #4 in two days.
I am reading...
The Buffalo Hunter Hunger by Stephen Graham Jones: I don’t read much horror, so I am trying something outside my wheelhouse.
Have a great weekend,
Ben
P.S. From a beautiful hike in Ireland
