Shepherd's mission has a Yin and a Yang. The Yin is readers, and everything we do is designed to help them find amazing books in new and unique ways. I mention that in case someone thinks our focus is only on authors. I need to write more about readers and how we are helping them find books via their book DNA (and my long-term plans there). 

Are you Oprah?

I get this question a lot. I am not Oprah 😀.

We are slow & steady exposure to the most likely readers for your book. We do not yet provide a massive burst of exposure. Shepherd is designed for slow and steady exposure month after month and year after year. But that exposure is to the most likely readers for your book (if you do this right).

I like to tell authors that Shepherd is 1 of the 100 things they should do online to market their book. And I aim to be 4 of the 100 things they do to market their book within a few years.

Eventually, I would like to do even more; our main limitation is our budget. Everything you see was built with one part-time developer, and imagine what we can do with 1 or 2 full-time developers (please support us here). 

What is my two-pronged strategy for helping authors?

Summary if you can't watch the video:

1. Shepherd will create features to help authors get their books in front of the most likely readers for their book. We will do this in a way that delights and engages readers so they become interested in you and your book. 

2. Shepherd will build a platform to foster and grow indie book recommendations. I want to give authors a wider array of book recommendation channels to meet readers through. 

How will you help authors move up the publicity ladder freely? 

I've started at the bottom of the ladder. 

Our five book recommendation format is designed to provide slow and steady exposure to the most likely readers for your book. 

I want to give authors a consistent stream of sales by placing them in front of the most interested readers. The sales won't be huge, but they should be consistent exposure to the readers most interested in your book. Similar to if your mystery book was in a mystery-only bookstore to help it connect with the right readers. This helps build word-of-mouth virality with the people who could be your biggest fans. 

For new authors, this helps them get exposure to readers who are not family and friends. And I want to help them start getting reviews on Amazon to help drive word-of-mouth marketing.

The next step is to figure out which books have that magic spark and how to help them get more and more publicity. 

As we grow, I plan to use data from readers and authors to identify books with that magic spark and help them freely get more and more publicity. 

Our first step toward this is our "best books of the year" feature. I added this in 2023, and we asked 1600+ authors for their favorite 3 reads of the year. Then we split that into the "most-read books in 2023" and the "most-read books that were published in 2023". And we segment it by genre, age, and other factors. 

We've had 200,000+ readers visit this page in 2023, and I am aiming to make 2024 even bigger. 

We are very new and need to reach one million visitors a month. 

We are two years old and still in our baby stage.

We are also bootstrapped from my savings, and we've built everything you see with a part-time developer (plus our small but mighty team that manages publishing). We need your support in building this website. Please join as a member to build a better book website for readers and authors. 

We need to reach 34,000 visitors a day (a million visitors a month). We would be financially sustainable at this level with our small team and one part-time developer. That means we can keep building new features at our current pace or faster. Even better would be the ability to hire a full-time developer in addition to our part-time dev (so we can build features faster for readers and authors).

Strategic Track #1:

Create features to help authors get their books in front of the most likely readers for their book (and do so in a way that delights readers).

How are we doing this right now?

• Our 5 book recommendation list format is where authors share five books they love around a topic, theme, or mood. Your list's topic/theme/mood should be close to your book so that every reader who visits your list will be interested in your book. Here is data on how well this works and a small case study. The trick we use is to show your personality, expertise, and passion through your book recommendation, which gets readers interested in you and your book. 
• In 2023, we launched our book boost program! This is a perk for our Founding Members. This ad format helps them get more publicity from the most likely readers based on genre, topics, target reading age, and similar authors. 

What's next on this track?

• In 2024, we will launch an interesting facts/stories feature. This will place your book in front of readers interested in the topic of your book and directly engage them through a fact/story. 

What am I researching?

• I am working on a feature to introduce your characters to readers (kinda like online dating, but for book characters). This will allow readers to browse characters based on the attributes of that character or browse characters similar to one they already know. For example, if someone likes Bosch, we will help them meet other books with intense detectives with a passion for justice. Or we will help them find female detective characters. We will have a short profile of that character designed to engage and pull the reader toward your book. 
• I am working to launch a personalized book recommendation email feature. This will allow readers to pick their favorite books, authors, genres, and topics and get personalized book and book list recommendations every week (or every few weeks, depending on their pick).

Strategic goal #2:

Create a platform to build a fan base around book recommendations. 

How are we doing this right now?

• In 2023, we launched our 3 Favorite Reads program, where authors can share their favorite books of the year. This is our first step in starting to create indie book recommendation channels. We also made it possible for readers to subscribe to recommenders they like (which needs a lot of improvement). For authors, this list is not as targeted to your most likely readers (unless you read in that area). It is very effective in gently nudging your fans/community toward your book. We have much more to improve in the coming years. And I would like to expand this format to readers. 

What's next on this track?

I have very limited resources, but as our revenue grows, I will be adding more features. 

What am I researching?

• I am working on how we can add user accounts to the website. This will allow readers to subscribe to book recommendation personalities easily. This is also the first step in asking readers for their favorite books, authors, genres, topics, and themes so that we can match their book DNA to book recommenders. This is a big project and severely limited by our income. 

P.S. Do you want to help us grow faster?

I launched a membership program for founding members at the urging of authors and readers. 100% of the money raised goes toward developing new features, and my goal is to hire a full-time developer (currently, we only have one part-time developer).