Is there a way I can track how many people look at my recommendations? Or click my book?

Currently, we do not have tracking for authors.

I am working toward building a dashboard for authors. I don't have an ETA yet. 

Here is the overall traffic and sales stats for the website (updated monthly). And here is a report on how many readers click the promoted book from a book list. 

What stats do you have?

I have stats on my side to see how many visitors we receive and what recommendations they view. I also have stats on how many people click links to bookstores (but not on individual books).

I am currently using Plausible.io to do this (I used Google Analytics in the past, but Google switched to GA4, which is terrible). 

Why is this a technical challenge and so expensive to build?

First, I need a user account system for authors so they can see these stats. I aim to launch a user account system in Q4 2023 for the upcoming personalized email newsletter feature. Once that is in place, I will have user accounts so that I have a place to add stats. Even with a user system in place, this is a massive amount of work to connect authors, their books, and their lists together. 

Second, I need to find a tracking system that can track clicks on a book level, page level, and allows me to pull that data via an API. If I can't find one that works, I will have to build something custom.

Both of these paths are incredibly expensive and time-consuming. 

What stats would I like to show authors in a future dashboard?

• How many readers viewed their book list(s)
• How many readers clicked their book, from where they clicked, and to which bookstores.  

When can you build this? 

I believe I will have a better E.T.A. in Summer 2024. 

Why not now?

With our very limited financial and development resources, my main focus right now is to build features that grow traffic and have the biggest impact on getting Shepherd to financial sustainability.

My goal is to be profitable by December 2024.

Building an author login system with these stats doesn't help me grow traffic or make money, so it isn't on my list for now. I am hoping that might be something we can do for 2024 or 2025. If you want to help us build faster, check out the membership program for founding members (if I had 2,000 paying authors, that would allow us to hire a full-time developer and make this a priority). 

An author just sent me info on Amazon Attribution, which could be used to measure sales Shepherd sends to Amazon. That is super cool, and you can learn more about it here. I would love to build that into this system. Although currently authors I asked say it is only 60% accurate. 

P.S. Would you like to help us build features like an author stats system 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).