How does the 3-favorite-reads format help me as a children's author?

If you write children's, middle-grade, or Y.A. books, you can submit your favorite reads as your brand (i.e., share your favorite children's books that you read that year).

I know that as children's authors, you often read hundreds of children's books and want to pick your favorites from them if you prefer. You also have the option to share your favorite reads as yourself if you would rather go that route. 

How does the overall program help children's authors?

For 2024 - I didn't have time to add this feature at the end of the form for 2024, but I will for 2025. If you want, you can fill out a form for your kid's picks separately. If you need any help just email support@shepherd.com for help. 

I ask authors to share their kid's (or grandkids) favorite three reads of the year. 

For example, I asked my 6-year-old for their favorites: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/ben-fox

This helps pull readers to lists around children's books, and we will have big categories around children's, middle-grade, and Y.A. books for our big end-of-year. This does help parents and grandparents find cool children's, MG, and YA books. And it will help you if your book is picked.

How does this help all authors?

Please read my big post on how the "3 favorite reads of the year" program help me sell books.

How does this connect to Shepherd's strategic goals for helping authors?

Our second strategic goal is that Shepherd will create a platform for authors and book lovers to build a fan base around book recommendations. Not only is that great for readers, but it will also create thousands of book recommendation channels for authors to reach different segments of readers. 

This is our first step toward building more recommendation channels for readers based on their book DNA. This will benefit authors by providing them with diverse book recommendation channels to reach readers. I don't want books to become a "winner-takes-all market," and this is part of the fight to stop that trend. 

Here is a full breakdown of our strategy and tactical goals for authors.