Ever heard of “Shepherd-explore,discover, read”?

The best way I can describe it is – a book discovery site that focuses on promoting currently active authors, their books, and books they recommend. I found it through a discussion thread on the Author’s Guild website.

Shepherd asked me to write five short book reviews – any book, any genre, older titles welcome. They only asked that the novels I chose were similar to BridgeKeeper, comps if you will. In exchange for publishing my reviews, they posted my book along side the others with buttons to purchase on Amazon or Bookshop.org. My recommendation page includes links to my website and the BK book trailer. Pretty sweet.

[image error] These are the five novels I reviewed – good comps for BridgeKeeper.

It’s an interesting way to shop for books. You can search my name, L.S.Moore, or BridgeKeeper, or any of the five books I recommended. Of course, you can search more generally for any title, author, genre or age group. The books aren’t ranked or limited to new titles, or best sellers. They’re presented with reviews by authors who love them. Each authors page has a catchy title that defines their theme. It was a relief to be able to include older books in my list. New release comps for BK are hard to find!

The founder’s name is Ben Fox. He describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur who loves to read.” Here’s a podcast interview with Ben on Writerscast – the voice of writing with David Wilk. Ben says that what he’s trying to do is re-create, online, the experience of wandering through your favorite book store. You won’t find New York Times or Kirkus reviews – just short, personal thoughts from authors about books they love.

Check out Shepherd and let me know what you think.