Today's email is for those of you interested in a few self-publishing stats.
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A little rainforest treat shared only with this curious crew.

"How's it going with the book(s)?" ​
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This tends to be the first thing people ask.
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My usual answer of, 'It's going okay', tends to be more based on the mood I'm in when you ask and that doesn't really cut the mustard.

So grab a banana and let's take a closer look...
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​Sales/Units​
The Monkey State - 571
In Search of Maya - 42
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​Kindle Unlimited Page Reads
​The Monkey State - 5,990
In Search of Maya - 2,566
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​Reviews: the most 🫣 part for authors (and editors I'm told!)​
The Monkey State (UK)- 53 at 4.9*
The Monkey State (US) - 53 at 4.8*
The Monkey State (RoW) - 9 at 4.7*
In Search of Maya (UK) - 5 at 4.8*
In Search of Maya (US) - 8 at 4.7*
In Search of Maya (RoW) - 1 at 5* (thank you Frank in Spain!)
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Before you get nitpicky on the last section, yes some reviews carry across all stores, but some don't, so I think the 53 is a slight coincidence for Book 1.

Now, it's very early days for In Search of Maya​ and admittedly I've been pretty low key on the promo front so far.

I could easily blame the sunshine and my wonderful hammock in the back garden...
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So I will.
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​But, I'd be more intrigued to hear what you make of these stats?
Higher or lower than you expected from the outside?
Any of particular interest?​
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Reviews are, of course, very close to my heart and I'm excited to see what you monkeys make of Book 2.

It's not one to be rushed (unless you want to).

You've got until December 😉
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The stat that intrigues me the most though is the page reads.
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For those of you that don't know - if you make your ebook Amazon exclusive they sign you up for Kindle Unlimited and pay you per page.

Before you think, 'Wow! Jim must have quite the salt stack already.' The amount per page is kinda low and comes from Bezos's slightly mysterious Global Fund...

You'll have to do your own digging here.
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Anyway, a big benefit of a Series is that you can start to stack total page reads as shown in the screenshot above.
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It's also really humbling to think of people making their way through the jungle of Eldervaria at their own pace.
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What would be really cool to see would be page reads from ebook purchases (rather than KU borrows).

Yet, Amazon is still notoriously secretive over its reader data.

I'll have to get the Monvida or Dubbert on the case.
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Enjoy the heat & Hang Comfy,
J. R. Roberts
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P.S. Next newsletter I'm going to talk book marketing and explore my own recent marketing malaise caused by a perplexing paradox of choice. Sounds a mouthful. But after a bit lot of pondering, I have a plan!