A timeline of major features and events since our birth on April 19th, 2021.
Every year, we ask thousands of readers (and authors) to share their 3 favorite reads of the year. Now you can enter a book/author you love and see what books readers loved who also loved that book/author.
Try it here: https://bookdna.com/bboy/2025
This is a fun way to get book recommendations from people who love the same books or authors you love.
In November 2024, I removed all the ugly display ads from the website. This is a somewhat risky move, as the ads cover a portion of our costs. However, I am confident we can replace them with book ads and deliver a better experience for both readers and authors in one go.
The ultimate goal is to provide authors with a “one-click” way to get their book in front of the most likely readers, based on similar authors, books, and genres (and filter for the age focus for children's books). And do that in an authentic way that drives interest in the author and their book(s).
Email [email protected] to get pricing and details. I am currently testing it with ~5 authors to ensure everything is working properly (during this test period, authors get a 50% discount), and I work with them every step of the way to improve targeting and performance.
After three months of testing, I'll make pricing public. And I'll continue to share data and details on our author newsletter.
One of the perks our members receive is Book Boost ads for their book(s). We show their book to 100-200 of the most likely readers to thank them for supporting our mission to build this platform.
We added automated stats so that authors can see how many readers saw their ad, the clicks they got, and their click-through-rate. We send the email on the 15th and 1st of every month.
This is a massive upgrade for our 3,000+ bookshelves.
Bookshelves are groupings of books by genres, topics, or age groups, such as Science fiction, World War 1, or Kids' books.
This section shows the most recommended books within that bookshelf. Plus, you can dive into the most recommended books by year, decade, age group, and more (depending on the book grouping).
Try the best science fiction books of all time.
This page will update monthly and show you the books mentioned the most in the last month. It is a cool way to identify up-and-coming books and authors.
Try the top trending science fiction books (updated monthly).
This section shows the most recommended books published in the last 3 years. We want to help readers spot the newest books being discussed.
Try the best new science fiction books.
This page allows you to filter through our database of recommended books by genre, topic, and more.
Explore science fiction books by their Book DNA.
This will show off book recommendation lists that authors and experts have created that match that bookshelf. For example, Dave's list of the best science fiction books with an everyman hero under the sci-fi bookshelf.
Explore all our science fiction book lists by authors.
We have a personalized book newsletter where readers can input up to 6 favorite books, authors, genres, or topics. Then we email them book ideas based on their desired frequency (weekly to every 4 weeks).
What did we add?
We created the concept of book series within our system and started publishing those pages on the frontend (it creates books-like pages for that series and shows book lists related to it).
Try this one for the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, books like Dungeon Crawler Carl, and book lists with DCC.
I want to make it easier for readers to see all the books in a series and celebrate the author's work. Both readers and authors highly requested this. I am working to add a notification system so readers get alerts when a new book is out in their favorite series.
We improved the accuracy of the book lists we recommend on search pages.
The lists we recommend are now much better matched to the genre and topic. Try this one for Space Opera under “book lists connected to space opera.”
We launched the Book Boost perk for Founding Authors a year ago! We have learned a lot and upgraded it in the following ways:
In our third full year since launch, we welcomed over 3.2 million visitors!
This was a decline versus the 5 million we had in 2023. Why?
Google is struggling with the quality of its search engine, and 2024 was rough as we lost a lot of the traffic they usually send us. They are no longer showing independent publishers and have made a massive shift toward large brands like Forbes (yuck). If you are curious about the situation, here is a breakdown of what is happening by other indie publishers (HouseFresh, RetroDodo, Healthy Framework (part 2), RePlay, etc..).
This is painful in the short term, but I hope to regain even more traffic over the coming years as they fix their search engine. We also have a lot of non-Google traffic, which continues to grow fast. I wrote up my thoughts here to share with Google.
This, along with the shift to an AI world, is why we are focused on building a full app for readers so they come straight to us (and eventually, we will launch phone apps).
We added a referral program for authors, online communities, and readers. How does that help them?
We launched the 3 Favorite Reads of the Year program in 2023, but we did everything manually, and authors submitted their picks via a Word document. Now, readers and authors can submit everything online!
Try it here and share your 3 favorite reads (here are mine,)! This uses our new Book DNA review format that I have been testing. It is designed to help understand why you liked a book so that as we grow, we can help you find readers who share your Book DNA and deliver better recommendations.
It has been a long time coming, but we finally have user accounts in place. This will power every feature we build for readers and authors in the coming years. The first feature it will power is the upcoming 3 favorite reads of the year event!
Do you want amazing book recommendations from readers like you?
Readers can pick three of their favorite authors/books and three of their favorite genres/topics and get personalized book recommendations each week. This is in beta as we work to fine-tune and gather feedback.
We upgraded our front page to make it easier to navigate and pretty 😄.
This puts the focus on search, as that is the most efficient way for readers to start using Book DNA. Especially with the improvements we have made to that system.
We made massive improvements to our search feature. We now return search result pages that help readers start exploring the website. They can search for an author, book, genre, topic, or age-group.
Try our page on Stephen King, the book Tom Swan and the Head of St. George, a topic like pandemics, a genre like fantasy, or an age group like young adult (we also have specific ages and grades).
In our second full year since launch, we welcomed over 5 million visitors!
For the first time, we received 500,000 visitors in a single month, thanks to the publicity surrounding the Best Books of the Year feature.
We launched a big perk for our Founding Authors to help their books get a little extra publicity. As long as they are members we put them in front of 100 to 200 of the most likely readers for their book every month with Book Boost Ads.
We've got more perks coming for members!
Every year, we ask readers for their 3 favorite reads of the year. This combines all that data to show which books are the most favored. Plus, you can dive deep into genres, topics, and age groups.
Our goal here it to delight readers with great books and give authors more publicity who have a book with that “magic spark.”
Authors can now share their 3 favorite reads of the year, and we promote one of their books alongside their list. Check out author Ingrid Ricks’ favorite 3 reads of 2023. It is a great way to engage your fan base and remind them about your book, and Shepherd also promotes this list to our visitors.
We added genre, topic, and age filters to all our bookshelves to help you discover the type of book you want! Plus, you can sort the results by serendipity, most-recommended, newest books, and oldest books.
Try our bookshelf on science fiction and use the filters to zoom in on only science fiction books with artificial intelligence.
We added genre and age data to the backend and many tools to manage those. This is the culmination of many months of work and research, and it will power many future features.
Previous to this, we did everything manually. Now, we only need to find an ISBN/ASIN, check for errors, and find a high-definition book cover image.
We also added some protections to help us identify duplicate books and authors. In the long term, I hope to create direct access for authors to fix data and our own "librarian program" for readers who want to help improve data (the data is so messy).
In our first full year since launch, we welcomed over 1.8 million visitors in 2022!
For the first time, we received over 250,000 visitors in a single month!
We added book explore points across Shepherd so that you can easily dive into individual books and see:
Just click “What is this book about?” to try it!
Now, you can find books based on a book you already know and love!
Even better, these recommendations are from fans of that book and not some silly computer algorithm. Try this page with books like Kitchen Confidential (by one of my heroes, Anthony Bourdain).
We added individual book pages to explore each book and why you should read it (try Kitchen Confidential or Dune). We have a lot more planned for this section in the coming years.
We also added a page showing the book lists this book appears on.
This switches the format to one column instead of two, and it shows more about the person making the recommendation (plus, you can meet them and their book). Try our bookshelf on dystopias to try it. This is the finished version as we tried a few different options during testing.
We launched a new recommendation system at the bottom of each book list. This allows readers to keep following their curiosity through the website. Try it at the bottom of Steven Pinker’s list on rationality.
