4 ms·

Avid reader here, just signed up. There's always room for new methods for discovering reading material. Not to pry on your secret sauce, but if you're open wou

Avid reader here, just signed up. There's always room for new methods for discovering reading material. Not to pry on your secret sauce, but if you're open would be good to hear how you're trying to do the discovery part differently.

bwb 6y ago
Thanks! To start, I am focusing on asking authors/experts for their 5 book recommendations on a topic they are passionate about and know well. Here are some examples of how this is playing out: The Best Books On The Soviet Space Program And The Space Race -> https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-soviet-space-program https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-soviet-space-program The Best Books On The Ocean And Seas -> https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-ocean-and-seas https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-ocean-and-seas The Best Books On Content Creation And Content Marketing -> https://shepherd.com/best-books/content-creation-and-content-marketing https://shepherd.com/best-books/content-creation-and-content... Then I will relate those book lists to each other both distantly and closely in order to help a reader follow their curiosity through the website, kinda like walking through aisles of books: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/related-book-lists https://forauthors.shepherd.com/related-book-lists Then toward July/August I will add Topic pages to help people find books on a topic they are interested in like World War 2, Grief, Startups, and so on: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/shelf-pages https://forauthors.shepherd.com/shelf-pages My goal is as I build up the content that next year I will do two things: 1. Start playing with NLP to create even more unique ways to find books, such as browsing a timeline of Japan and inserting people and events and books/book-lists into 2. Start asking users for their 1-3 favorite books of the year. I want to make this an incredibly high quality vote that is limited. And, use that to help add more books to the mix. ben@shepherd.com, hit me up as I could use feedback :), Thanks, Ben

bwb 6y ago

Thanks! To start, I am focusing on asking authors/experts for their 5 book recommendations on a topic they are passionate about and know well. Here are some examples of how this is playing out: The Best Books On The Soviet Space Program And The Space Race -> https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-soviet-space-program https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-soviet-space-program The Best Books On The Ocean And Seas -> https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-ocean-and-seas https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-ocean-and-seas The Best Books On Content Creation And Content Marketing -> https://shepherd.com/best-books/content-creation-and-content-marketing https://shepherd.com/best-books/content-creation-and-content... Then I will relate those book lists to each other both distantly and closely in order to help a reader follow their curiosity through the website, kinda like walking through aisles of books: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/related-book-lists https://forauthors.shepherd.com/related-book-lists Then toward July/August I will add Topic pages to help people find books on a topic they are interested in like World War 2, Grief, Startups, and so on: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/shelf-pages https://forauthors.shepherd.com/shelf-pages My goal is as I build up the content that next year I will do two things: 1. Start playing with NLP to create even more unique ways to find books, such as browsing a timeline of Japan and inserting people and events and books/book-lists into 2. Start asking users for their 1-3 favorite books of the year. I want to make this an incredibly high quality vote that is limited. And, use that to help add more books to the mix. ben@shepherd.com, hit me up as I could use feedback :), Thanks, Ben