Why doesn't search show genres like non-fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, and so on?

Coming December 2023!

We launched the genre and age pages in early May. Along with filters to help readers hone in on books they are interested. We didn't have time to redo search with those but will add the end of the year. 

Why didn't we start with genres? 

Because that information is very expensive to access (it requires a book license). And it is a massively complex and expensive thing to build support for. 

That type of book data is expensive to license, and we just licensed a book API provider in April 2022.

We will now work to integrate it into the website starting in January 2023. As we finish the pieces, we will launch the public features in late March (maybe some pieces a little earlier). This is a monster project. 

What will add to the website?

• Pages for genres and age groups (i.e., science fiction, fantasy, books for kids, books for tweens)
• Filters on bookshelves and books-like to help readers filter to see a specific genre, books for a certain age, and more! 
• Integrating it with search and the front page. 
• Lots more that I will share on the author newsletter soon :)

I will have more info on that soon, and you can see our feature roadmap here: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/roadmap 

How does search work right now?

Our goal is to help readers find a place to browse and meet amazing books and authors. To that end, search currently connects them to Bookshelves and Book Lists using:

• Wikipedia Topic - Type in a Wikipedia topic like World War 2, Grief, Dragons, or so on to get bookshelves and book lists that might interest you.
• Favorite Author - Type in one of your favorite authors to get recommended bookshelves and book lists you might like. We only have authors in Shepherd recommended by other authors, so we might not have your favorite author yet. 
  • As of Sep 13th, 2022, we have ~29,000 authors in our system. 
• Favorite Book - Type in one of your favorite books to get recommended bookshelves and book lists you might like. We only have books in Shepherd recommended by other authors, so we might not have your favorite book yet. 
  • As of Sep 13th, 2022, we have ~31,000 books in our system. 

P.S. Would you like to help us build features like this faster?

I launched a membership program for founding members at the urging of authors and readers. 100% of the money goes toward developing new features and my goal of hiring a full-time developer in 2023 (currently, we only have one part-time developer).