“Please don’t mistake me for a crazy dreamer.”
That statement is from Ben Fox, founder of Shepherd, a relatively new book discovery site. As an avid reader of more than 100 books per year, Fox launched Shepherd partly out of his own frustration with online book discovery. As Shepherd’s homepage notes, “Goodreads makes finding new books about as much fun as browsing a spreadsheet.” And Fox believes how you find a book is important. “That search is the start of a journey, and it should be fun.”
Shepherd is driven by the power of book recommendations from authors and experts. It launched in April 2021, and as of June 2022, it enjoys more than 100,000 visitors per month. So far it has nearly 6,000 book recommendation pages, all human powered, none of them algorithmically generated. The recommendations take the form of a narrowly focused list that’s tied to the author’s expertise, such as The Best Books about Deeply Lovable Dysfunctional Families or The Best Indie CyberPunk Books to Get Your Circuits Going. But Shepherd is not just looking for a rote list; it’s seeking authors who can express what they love about a book—to create a spark between them and readers.
During the early days of Shepherd, Fox reached out proactively to authors and publishers to get things moving. But he experienced problems because many automatically assumed his site was some kind of scam. (Fox started without industry connections or trust within the author and publishing community.) Over time, he has been able to overcome that challenge with authors, not least because of the evident quality of the site and how much vetting goes on behind the scenes to keep that quality high. As for publishers, he says talking to them is like hitting a wall, although he’s had good responses from publicists.
Today, Shepherd primarily relies on organic search traffic to grow, and Fox’s background is in online marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Shepherd is not active on social media as of yet, as Fox is prioritizing web traffic and working on launching a custom book recommendation newsletter for readers in early 2023.
Currently, Shepherd is being monetized through Bookshop and Amazon affiliate links. Fox expects that Shepherd will reach financial stability by 2023—which requires income of $15,000 per month—and he has dozens of ideas for how the site can earn money. The site will soon include advertising powered by an ad network (Mediavine), which means advertisements for not just books but all kinds of products. Fox is also working on advertising programs for authors and publishers and hopes the site will move to book-only ads in a few years. He’s also considering membership programs, a marketplace for autographed copies of books, a shop with book-related merchandise, and more.
Fox has a history of founding companies that are later sold off. But when asked if that would be the eventual fate of Shepherd, he told us no. “It’s very much a passion project that I am not selling.” He’s investing his own money, and there’s no pressure on him to produce certain results on a timeline. “It is something I would like to work on the rest of my life.”
Bottom line: What’s refreshing about this project is the level of transparency that can be found on Shepherd’s site about its priorities, development timeline, marketing, and business model. It’s all laid out in its entirety, along with Fox’s personal story and mission for launching the site. Shepherd is ultimately his answer for how readers can find authors and books that will never be featured prominently at either Amazon or Goodreads. The crazy dreamer in him believes it’s possible to change publishing and make it easier for authors to find readers without hiring their own marketing team. If you want to stay up to date on what Shepherd is doing, sign up for its author newsletter.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
