User accounts, personalized book recommendations, Book DNA review format, and more!

Shepherd turned 3! Woohoo :)

Every 3 weeks, I share my notes on building Shepherd.com.

I believe that books build better people. I am on a mission to help readers explore & discover books in new and unique ways. I want to create the magical feeling you get wandering around your favorite bookstore but for the online world. And I want to do this while helping authors reach readers in fun and authentic ways.

Three hurrahs for our 687 Founding Members who keep us independent and fund new features. My 2024 goal is to reach 1,000 members to fully fund our part-time developer and designer so we can keep building great new features for our community. 

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Mood check for Friday, May 2nd 🤪

How is it May?!!? I am sick but otherwise good!

Shepherd turned 3 years old on April 19th and is humming along. Our new part-time developer is doing great and getting used to the code base. I am excited to start adding reader features in the coming months 🥳.

What are we working on?

Adding User Accounts

We started adding user accounts to Shepherd.com. This is a crucial step so that we can offer personalized features for readers & authors.

Personalized Book Recommendation Emails

We’ve started work on a new feature to deliver personalized weekly book recommendation emails to readers.

How will our beta of this feature work?

(Beta means it will have minimum functionality to get it shipped. Then, we can start testing it with real readers and grow it from there. )

We will ask readers for 3 of their favorite books/authors and 3 of their favorite genres.

Then, we will show them book recommendation list ideas based on that and invite them to sign up for a weekly email with similar results delivered to them weekly.

What is the goal?

Each email aims to delight readers with unique book lists by authors. Plus, it is another way we help authors bump into readers with their book recommendation lists.

I want to build a stronger relationship with readers and use this to launch more and more reader features (that, over the long term, will build more of a community).

Book DNA Review Format

I rolled out the 2nd test of the book review format I am testing.

(This book review format aims to help readers find books they will love by building a profile of what books they love and why.)

I feel more confident about this approach, and I’ve started doing video interviews with readers.

Next, I will take this data and build out examples of profiles to see how this would manifest on the website. Then, I need to decide whether to do more user interviews or ship a beta version and start learning on a bigger scale.

Roadmap Review

What are we actively building?

• User accounts for Shepherd.com.

• Personalized book recommendation email

• Improving our audiobook preview links

What is next?

• Switching the Book Boost program for Founding Members to provide persistent exposure for their books as a perk to thank them for their continued support.

• Launching pages around book series and getting that in place.

What are the designer and I working on?

• Playing with some new ads for the Book Boost program to increase engagement.

• Some design improvements for the book recommendation list.

• All the design work needed to expand the bookshelves as a discovery point for readers.

• Finishing the interesting facts/stories design.

• Improving the book section design to expand it.

Very cool mention in The Guardian

We had a super cool mention in The Guardian on an article about how to find new books: The experts: librarians on 20 easy, enjoyable ways to read more brilliant books.

Always fun to see :)

What is going on outside of Shepherd?

I am in the middle of training for a 1,000km bike trip in May. I did a 100km+ ride on Monday and promptly got sick the day after. I am also prepping for our summer move and slowly boxing things up. It will be a busy summer.

What am I reading?

I just finished...

• Book 5 of the Wheel of Time series.

I am reading...

• The Wheel Of Time series - This is one of my favorite book series, and I decided to reread it for some comfort food.

• M: Son of the Century - About Mussolini. I am ~65% done. I am digging it, but it is slow reading with much to think about. 

• Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World - This is a fascinating account of a group that is part of our DNA, yet we don't know about them because they don't have physical evidence. 

Thanks, Ben

Picture: My son and I did a bike weekend up north; it was a beautiful ride!