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message 1: by M.J. (new)

M.J. Fleming (mjflemingbooks) | 26 comments For those whose book is enrolled in KU, what would you consider your average pages read, say per day? I've published my first fiction novel and I'd like to get a gauge on what would be considered average. I'm probably somewhere in the 200-300 average per day which appears to net me about $.50 but that's ok. I don't necessarily know that being exclusive with Amazon is worth KU at this point but to be honest marketing myself and writing the second book is enough to do without worrying about going wide just yet. Curious though how other people are doing so I can make a more educated decision in a few months or possibly early next year.
Thanks


message 2: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments It seems to fluctuate for me. In May I had about 2800 pages read for the month, June was almost 6000, and July seems on track for 4000.


message 3: by M.J. (new)

M.J. Fleming (mjflemingbooks) | 26 comments Peter wrote: "It seems to fluctuate for me. In May I had about 2800 pages read for the month, June was almost 6000, and July seems on track for 4000."
how long has your book been out, out of curiosity. I just ordered, I love apocalyptic stories.


message 4: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments M.J. wrote: "Peter wrote: "It seems to fluctuate for me. In May I had about 2800 pages read for the month, June was almost 6000, and July seems on track for 4000."
how long has your book been out, out of curios..."


Thank you! I published April 2, but didn't enroll in KDP Select until the end of April, so it's still new.


message 5: by Jenna (new)

Jenna Thatcher (jenna_thatcher) | 132 comments Just throwing my stuff in the pot - I've had anywhere from a couple thousand to 40K. For me it depends on whether I've just published something else, whether I had a freebie for a couple days, etc.
Also, it's different for different genres. I hear erotica does best at KU, but my clean regency romance has a consistent reading. My fractured fairy-tale doesn't do as good on KU, but sells better physical copies.
I'm working on a mystery, so it'll be interesting to see how that does.
Good luck!


message 6: by Rhonda (new)

Rhonda | 45 comments Wow. You guys are killing it. I think I’ve had only one person read my entire book on KU. Where/how do you guys market for KU?


message 7: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments I just promote my book on Facebook and my blog, and also on Goodreads when/where that’s permitted.


message 8: by Jenna (new)

Jenna Thatcher (jenna_thatcher) | 132 comments Rhonda wrote: "Wow. You guys are killing it. I think I’ve had only one person read my entire book on KU. Where/how do you guys market for KU?"

I know people who do way better than I do. In fact, I really don't make much money at all. I write because it's fun, honestly.
I also don't actually do any marketing, but I do spring for a nice cover. I have a designer that's great. I've also been published for a couple years, so I've slowly built a following. Not huge, but what I refer to as a 'self-sustaining hobby'. :)


message 9: by M.J. (new)

M.J. Fleming (mjflemingbooks) | 26 comments I do FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram a few others here and there .... the voice of my audio book has an amazing following so that has helped a ton at least from exposure .... I don’t market specifically to KU but seem to have a relatively steady reading. It’s hard when you don’t know what’s the average. I feel like having an idea would help me determine if I should stay exclusive w Amazon or start to consider going wide when I get my second book out...


message 10: by Steve (new)

Steve Janulin (shadow2f5) | 13 comments My best month was 3000, but mine has also only been out for a month.


message 11: by L.K. (new)

L.K. Chapman | 154 comments M.J. wrote: "It’s hard when you don’t know what’s the average. I feel like having an idea would help me determine if I should stay exclusive w Amazon or start to consider going wide when I get my second book out..."

This July my average works out at 3,489 pages read per day. I worked that out from total pages read so far divided by number of days, but it actually varies a lot from day to day, at the beginning of the month it was more like 1,000-2,000 a day, then I released the third book in a trilogy on the 9th July and the average went up to more like 3,000-4,000 a day.

To give a slightly longer-term picture, over the last 90 days, my average works out at 2,485 pages per day.

I have 5 novels published (one sci-fi novel, a psychological thriller trilogy, one standalone psychological thriller). The sci-fi book doesn't get many pages read so most of the KU reads come from the other 4 books, which I promote through facebook ads in the UK. I have also started experimenting with bookbub ads for one of my books recently.

I definitely like the advantages of being published exclusively with amazon. I do spend quite a lot on advertising though.


message 12: by Peter (last edited Jul 25, 2019 10:16AM) (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments L.K. wrote: "This July my average works out at 3,489 pages read per day."

That's quite impressive! I hope to get up to that kind of exposure once I have more than one book published.


message 13: by Jenna (new)

Jenna Thatcher (jenna_thatcher) | 132 comments L.K. wrote: "M.J. wrote: "It’s hard when you don’t know what’s the average. I feel like having an idea would help me determine if I should stay exclusive w Amazon or start to consider going wide when I get my s..."

L.K., do you advertise exclusively on Amazon? My husband wants me to give it a shot for a month or so and see what happens.


message 14: by L.K. (new)

L.K. Chapman | 154 comments Jenna wrote: "L.K., do you advertise exclusively on Amazon?."

I currently don't do any advertising on amazon with AMS ads. I used to but I started to find them less effective and I was constantly having to tweak them, so I focused my efforts solely on facebook ads rather than trying to split my attention between facebook and AMS.

Over the past week or so I have started experimenting with bookbub ads too, testing out targeting my ads using various different psychological thriller authors to find what works. It's looking fairly promising but it's early days yet.

Hope that helps :) I used to find AMS ads really good so it might be worth giving it a try.


message 15: by Anna (new)

Anna Faversham (annafaversham) | 560 comments AMS used to be good, just as you said, L.K. but now it is far too expensive both on the US and UK sites. If you don't keep an eye on it, you can run up big bills! And as L.K. indicated, a lot of tweaking needs to be done to keep them effective.

BookBub Ads: I've tried those for quite a while and I keep hoping that they will prove effective, however, as I cannot tell if any sales have resulted from my ads, it's somewhat unsatisfactory. I don't even get a lot of impressions and therefore not many clicks. Going to try again early next month.


message 16: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments Anna Faversham wrote: "AMS used to be good, just as you said, L.K. but now it is far too expensive both on the US and UK sites. If you don't keep an eye on it, you can run up big bills! And as L.K. indicated, a lot of tw..."

I'm on a shoestring budget, so I haven't been able to advertise much. However, I did get two credits to use for Facebook ads. Those had a lot of views but few clicks. I rely mostly on word of mouth and my own social media presence to spread the word.

It's hard out here for self-published authors!


message 17: by Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor (new)

Eldon Farrell | 539 comments Mod
As regards pages reads - I've had about 100k in the past four months, so about 833 per day. That said, before the last four months I had about 100k total going back to 2016. The spike has been caused, believe it or not, by running free promotions. No real handle on why free should matter to KU readers since the books are always free to them, but the numbers don't lie.

I've run BB ads to no real result. If you use CPM ads your money can vanish in a hurry though! Right now, I'm going to be starting an AMS ad to see if it can assist any in sales. The thing about AMS ads to remember is, the number of ratings for the book shows on the ad, so the more ratings you have, the more effective your ad should be, all things being equal.


message 18: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments Eldon wrote: "As regards pages reads - I've had about 100k in the past four months, so about 833 per day. That said, before the last four months I had about 100k total going back to 2016. The spike has been caus..."

Free promotions are great! I've had over two hundred downloads during free promotions.


message 19: by Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor (new)

Eldon Farrell | 539 comments Mod
Peter wrote: "Free promotions are great! I've had over two hundred downloads during free promotions."

Did you use any promotions?


message 20: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments Eldon wrote: "Peter wrote: "Free promotions are great! I've had over two hundred downloads during free promotions."

Did you use any promotions?"


You mean advertising? No, nothing beyond spreading the news on social media myself.


message 21: by M.J. (new)

M.J. Fleming (mjflemingbooks) | 26 comments I haven’t done any promotions yet but I plan to prior to book 2 being released. It’s great to see how others are fairing in the KU world. I feel like all I’ve heard of stories from authors who basically live off KU pages read and I’m looking at my $.06 cents per day :). Love all the feedback!


message 22: by Phillip (new)

Phillip Murrell | 427 comments Apparently, I need to up my game. A lot of you have awesome numbers! I typically have 1-3K per MONTH. That's a rough swag, but it still makes me smile. Especially when I see that the four books in my series are read in quick succession. It means at least one person was hooked enough to get to the end.


message 23: by Peter (new)

Peter Martuneac | 97 comments I agree! It’s a nice feeling when someone goes from my short story prequel right to the full-length novel, even if it’s just one person.


message 24: by Anna (new)

Anna Faversham (annafaversham) | 560 comments With AMS ads or any ads, we don't see how many readers pick up the book through KU but as others have mentioned, there is often a spike in page reads after we've marketed our books in one way or another.


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