Today’s edition covers:
Shepherd is now Book DNA: Can you update your links?
Give authors control over their readership.
The Book DNA app beta will be ready in 2 weeks for its first user tests!
Need book marketing help? Let’s do a Zoom!
February roadmap & traffic updates
Ben's updates and reading list
Three hurrahs for our 759 author members! 🥳
Your support keeps Shepherd independent and pursuing our mission to help authors with 3 goals: reach your most likely readers, more pubicity for trending books, and growing/engaging your fan base.
Here’s what author members receive:
♥️ You keep us independent, so we can build a platform that includes authors and helps them connect with readers.
📚 Book Boost Perk: We introduce you to 100 to 200 of the most likely readers for your book every month as a thank you for your support! Plus, we send out stats on those ads on the 1st and 15th of every month.
🗓️ Open hours every Thursday: I hold 4+ hours of open Zoom slots for any book marketing questions you have. I don’t have all the answers, but I can help with what I know and tell you when I don’t.
🔔 New book launch perk (coming soon, running late): This will allow members to feature their new books on all the “new book” pages on the website.
My goal is to reach 1,500 author members. At that level, Shepherd can fund major upgrades, including a proper author dashboard with stats.
Fun Size! 🦥
Don’t forget, you can anonymously ask Ben a question, and he will answer it in the next newsletter.
We now have 5,804 book series published on the website, and we are working to add thousands more. If you want us to add your book series, please email [email protected], and we will bump it to the top of the list.
What were your 3 favorite reads of 2025?
This is about what you read and loved in 2025, NOT when it was published.
Readers can now get personalized results based on books and authors they love. At the top of the page, just put in one of your favorite books/authors to get matched with readers who share your Book DNA.
Shepherd is now Book DNA
We’ve moved everything from the Shepherd.com URL to the BookDNA.com URL. It is the same great site, just with a new name!
Can you update your links to the new URL?
Can you update any links that point to Shepherd.com to point to BookDNA.com instead? Just email [email protected] if you need any help with how to do that 😀. The URL is the same, just with “bookdna” instead of “shepherd”.
And it would be a HUGE help to us if you wrote about Book DNA on your blog or newsletter to help speed up the migration in search results.
Backstory: After talking with readers, I decided that "Book DNA" better reflects what we have built and are continuing to build. The site itself is not changing. Your account, data, and experience will remain exactly the same. Only the name and URL are changing.
Thanks, Ben
Imagine a world where Goodreads gave you access to all the readers who have read your book and rated it 4 stars or higher. Instead of blocking you from your fans, they gave you tools to harness your fan base.
What might that tool look like?
Alert your fans when you have a new book out (especially a new book out in a series they are reading)
Organize your next book launch with your fan base so that on day 1, it is launched with pre-orders, reviews from real readers, and real buzz!
Invite them to join your fan club! That might even include a paid fan club (in addition to free). This might include early access to all your upcoming books, signed copies, early chapters, direct book sales from your website, and more.
Understand who your fan base is to help you make better marketing decisions.
How amazing would that be?
We want to build this for authors!
This will not happen overnight; we have a long journey ahead to reach this point, and we need your help as we build our full app for readers (the first step on this ladder).
We need authors willing to pay the price of one fancy coffee a month to become members and help build this platform. We have some great perks, and I hope you will consider joining our quest. I work for free, and 100% of our income goes toward our small development team building this platform and our server costs. I’m having to jump on a Zoom call to answer questions as well😀.
The Book DNA app beta will be ready for its first users in 2 weeks!
It is exciting to see the full app come alive 😀.
I will start user testing with 5 beta users and slowly expand from there. The goal of this early testing is to gather feedback, fix UX issues, and ensure we are building the features users want as we work toward a public launch.
Want to be part of the early beta testing program? Apply here!
What is in this first beta?
Your TBR (to-be-read) list, where you can manage what you are thinking about reading and what you want to read next.
Your reading log, where you can see what you are currently reading as well as what you have finished.
A global book search where you can find books to add to your TBR or reading log.
A private note function so you can leave your thoughts on books you're considering reading or have read.
The book rating process, where you log books into your log once you finish them.
What are we adding in the next phase of the beta?
Add a simple audiobook selection so you can mark when you are listening to a book rather than reading it.
Add simple genre filters so you can sort your TBR and Reading Log by genre.
Adding a public review system allows readers to leave public reviews of books if desired.
Add the user folder system so users can organize their books as they want.
Add the import system so readers can import their reading history from Goodreads or StoryGraph.
Exciting 😀
☎️ Need book marketing help? Let’s talk!
Recently, I’ve talked with authors about the following…
Reviewed their Amazon listing for what could be improved
Reviewed their book cover and how that fits in with their genre
Talked about possible outside-the-box book marketing they could be doing
Reviewed book marketing options and what is/isn’t working
Talk about pay-per-click ads on Amazon and Facebook, and what to try
I walked them through the full-reader app we are building and how that will help authors in the long term.
Explained how aspects of Shepherd work and answered questions they have about the different formats.
This is one of many perks for members: membership costs only the price of one fancy coffee drink a year, and everything we raise goes toward our mission to help authors and readers (I work for free).
Once you sign up for a membership, you can schedule a time to meet 😀.
My February Roadmap Update (For Authors)
What did we finish and ship?
We migrated from the domain Shepherd.com to BookDNA.com. Nothing will change except the URL/Name and FAQ here.
We fixed some small UX issues and bugs.
What are we working on?
Phase 1 of our full reader app (like Goodreads but smarter and deeply personalized). This is a massive project, and we are working to launch the beta in early March. (85% done)
We are upgrading our Book Boost perk to improve the ad format for authors and launch the “new book” perk for our members (80% done).
Holding: We are improving our books-like engine (75% done). I’ll share more on this as we finish this work. It is paused until we complete the Book Boost perk upgrade.
What are we building after that?
And then more features to get us to a public launch for the app. I’ll share those as we get further along 😀.
Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales
For last month:
We had 154,000+ visitors.
We had 10,700+ clicks to bookstore partners this month.
Of those, 2,200+ were clicks to an author’s promoted book.
Last year, we had 2.2 million visitors.
Detailed stats on our traffic, clicks, sales, and demographics.
What else is going on?
I took my son to Florence, Italy, for a week over his Winter break. What an utterly amazing city. Art and history on every corner, as well as amazing food. We had a blast. I think his highlight was learning to make pasta by hand. I highly recommend a visit, and I hope to go back in the future, as we barely scratched the surface.
And now I am visiting family in the USA (and running a bit slower than normal until I get home in a week). My brother and his family are visiting, and it was my one chance to play with my 2-year-old nephew this year. Fun times!
What am I reading?
I am reading...
I am working my way through the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson. I read books 1 and 2 when they came out, but haven’t kept up with releases, and I am doing a big re-read and catch-up.
Thanks, Ben
P.S. Making pasta in Florence, Italy!
