How does it work?

We show your book to the readers most likely to be interested in it.

We do this based on your book’s genres, topics, age groups, and similar authors.

This is a perk for our Founding Members who help fund this website and all the new features we build.

Here is a video walkthrough…

What does the ad look like?

Where would my book appear?

We show it all over the website; here are the specific spots it will show up.

1. On any matching Book Recommendation List. It is shown in a dedicated spot after the five books the author picked. We open this one with a “You might also like” title. We ensure that the book list matches the age focus of your book as well.

2. On any matching bookshelves in a dedicated spot as the 4th book listed only for “new book launches.” This continues to apply as long as the filters match your book.

3. On any matching books-like pages in a dedicated spot as the 4th book listed only for “new book launches.”

4. On any matching book pages in a dedicated spot after the 4th recommendation for that book.

The goal is to help you bump into readers who would be interested in your book.

How long will it run for?

For now, it runs for 60 days.

I just launched this feature at the end of November 2023, so I need 2 to 3 months of data to decide whether that is a reasonable period. I might shorten it, I might lengthen it. I will be sharing stats in the author newsletters.

How often is my book shown?

Shepherd receives ~500,000 pageviews each month (traffic stats here). This changes depending on how many readers visit us each month.

So, each time someone loads a page, if it matches your book's genre/topic/age, your book will be shown in the dedicated ad spot on the page they are on.

If there is more than one book matching, we evenly split the reader views between those.

How often your book is shown depends on how many visitors browse pages that match your book’s attributes.

• If 10% of the readers coming to Shepherd are viewing s pages related to middle-grade books, your middle-grade book will show up on all those spots (although if other books match, it will split those views between you).

• If 1% of the readers visiting Shepherd are viewing pages about memoirs, your book would appear on all those spots.

I hope that makes sense. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I don’t yet have any data on the CTR rate; we are just starting to collect this.

Is this just for new books? No!

No, we want to help any author trying to boost their book and get some exposure.

We don’t recommend featuring book #2 or higher, but rather the 1st book in the series. So, for authors with a new book in a book series, we are happy to feature book #1 again as the “new book.” There are some caveats here, depending on how you position the book on the Amazon page.