When I walk into my local bookstore, my heart sings with wonder and possibility.
I am there to explore and discover a book that sparks my interest. Will I go on a solo sailing trip around the world? Climb Everest? Save a kingdom from a troll army? Learn how whales communicate? Discover what made Abraham Lincoln tick? The possibilities are endless, and there is magic in that feeling.
The online world takes that experience and puts it in an online store the same way they sell toothpaste and bicycle tires. It is boring – and does a massive disservice to the magic of books. I want to change this and make exploring books online a fun experience.
I want to help readers wander down curiosity-filled paths until they meet a book that sparks something in them. That is why I started Shepherd.com
At the same time, authors face an immense challenge in getting their books in front of readers. I want to help them reach the most likely readers for their book through a shared love of reading. And I want to give them more places where their book can be noticed.
How does it work?
I ask authors to share five of their favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood. Next to each book, I asked them what they loved about the book. This personalization is key as Readers don’t want to be told they will like a book; they want to see it through someone else’s eyes and see if it resonates with them.
We feature the author and one of their books alongside their list. It is a great way to expose their passion and expertise, which helps them sell their book.
Let me show you a few examples…
Author Shivam Shankar Singh shared his favorite books to read if you want to understand Indian politics. He has incredible experience as the head of digital analytics for India’s largest political party, and the recommendations are fascinating.
Author Katie Tietjen shared her picks for the best mystery books starring kick-butt female sleuths. She grew up on a steady diet of Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown, then became a librarian, and is now a mystery author. You can feel her passion for the genre in her recommendations.
Harvard Professor Steven Pinker shared his favorite books on rationality and why it matters. He is a psychology and cognitive science professor and has spent his life on this subject. I’ve enjoyed several books on this list.
To create a feeling of exploration, we make it easy for readers to follow their curiosity around the website. And when they search, we don’t give them results but point them to places where they can start browsing.
You might start with a search for democracy and see a book list on why the world is more authoritarian, where you meet Natasha Lindstaedt (an expert on the subject). From that page, you might jump to the book How Democracies Die to read the book description and read why the 4 authors picked it as one of their favorites. From there, you might click explore and jump to the topic of political culture. You can even filter the big topic pages to see only specific genres, topics, and more. For example, you might sort our science fiction picks to see only books published in the last 3 years that also include A.I. elements.
We want to make it easy for you to follow your curiosity around the website. We have much more to build but are off to a solid start. In 2023, we had 5 million visitors, and I hope to grow even bigger in the coming years.
I am not Oprah, but we do get an author’s book in front of readers month after month and year after year. Over time, I hope to help authors with a book with a “magic spark” to get more and more publicity (you can read more about my strategy for authors here).
What is my biggest challenge?
We are still a start-up, we are still bootstrapping, and the biggest challenge is money—everything we earn we use to build new features and improve the existing ones.
In fact, everything you see at Shepherd.com is built by one part-time developer and one part-time designer. My goal is to make enough money to hire a full-time developer so we can build the features that readers and authors want. Right now, I can only build one big feature a year, and we are not yet covering our costs.
Shepherd earns revenue from display advertising, affiliate sales of books, and our membership program. My long-term goal is to remove the ugly display ads once we have enough members to fund that switch. Authors who are members get free perks like book launch ads; their lists are featured in a special section on the front page, and more.
Shepherd is a passion project for me, and I love books. I work entirely for free, and my goal is to build something fun for readers and authors. My email is ben@shepherd.com, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
Ben Fox is the Founder of Shepherd.com, which is designed to help you discover amazing books”