Episode Description:

In this episode of What If for Authors, Claire Taylor takes a practical and analytical deep dive into the concept of read-through—how to measure it, understand it, and improve it. Whether you’re a seasoned author or just starting out, Claire helps you cut through the emotional and technical hurdles of identifying whether readers are progressing through your books and how to troubleshoot if they’re not.

This episode offers actionable insights while encouraging a healthy, compassionate mindset for tackling challenges in your writing career.

Key Takeaways:

1. What is Read-Through, and How Do You Measure It?

Read-through measures how many readers move from one book in a series to the next.
Claire explains why read-through is difficult to measure if you only have one book and provides strategies like offering a compelling freebie at the end of your book to assess engagement.
For series, the most common measurement is the percentage of readers who purchase or borrow subsequent books.

2. Setting Expectations for Read-Through:

Industry averages for read-through can vary significantly based on pricing strategies and whether your books are in Kindle Unlimited.
Claire emphasizes that expectations are personal, and setting them too low or too high can create unnecessary emotional turbulence.

3. Troubleshooting Read-Through Issues:

Start with Back Matter: The first link readers see at the end of your book should ideally point to the next book in the series.
Analyze Openings and Endings: Your opening pages should hook readers immediately, and your ending should provide satisfaction while enticing them to continue the series.
Identify Drop-Off Points: Beta readers or hired feedback can help pinpoint where readers lose interest, offering insight into areas that might need tightening.

4. Factors Beyond the Numbers:

Some books are designed to be savored rather than inhaled, and that can affect the pace of read-through.
If you notice slow read-through but receive positive feedback, it might simply reflect the unique nature of your stories.

5. Addressing a Skills Gap:

If storytelling fundamentals are causing read-through issues, Claire encourages you to view it as an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than a reflection of your worth as a writer.
There are countless resources, workshops, and editors available to help you hone your craft.

Why You Should Listen: This episode is for authors who want to understand their read-through rates and take actionable steps to improve them without letting the process become emotionally overwhelming. Whether you're an indie author managing your own files or a traditionally published writer curious about what you can influence, Claire offers thoughtful strategies to tackle this common concern.

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation: Share your thoughts with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connect on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

Today's topic is one of the more practical ones that I'll be covering. And the reason I'm covering it is because it can so easily touch on our fears and make us not even want to approach it. Bye. But if we're going to keep readers coming back for more, we need to study ourselves and look it dead in the eyes.

So this episode asks the question, what if I'm not getting read through?

We run into a few problems when we first define this problem. So we trip over measurements first. So how do we know if we're getting read through on a book? That is, how do we know that someone is starting the book, finishing it, and then moving on to the next one if we have another book to [00:01:00] offer? So right off the bat, I'll say that it's incredibly hard to measure read through if you only have one book.

one book out. So maybe don't worry about this yet and move on to writing your next book. If you're really set on measuring it though, you can add something enticing to the back of your book, a call to action that feels like a no brainer for the reader, like a free epilogue or a novella. This isn't an exact measurement of who reads your book, but it's not nothing.

So if no one clicks on the no brainer freebie, then either no one is reading it to the end, very few people are, and none are converting, or maybe you have some sort of a technical glitch with your e book, like the link isn't working, or the also bought page is popping up on the e readers before they get to your freebie offer.

Other than that, the most common measurement of read through is from looking at what percentage of people who bought book one bought book two, essentially, and what percentage of people who bought book one bought books three [00:02:00] and four and so on. So you can look at the series read through or book to book read through to assess where people are dropping off, and then you can isolate what might be the issue.

So are your analytical brains tired yet? Uh, it's going to be a lot more of this, but we will get into some of the deeper issues soon. I promise.

Measurement method is just the first step. And as you can tell, it's already not an exact science. And what if you don't write in a series? How do you calculate read through then? Honestly, at that point we're getting closer to measuring vibes than data. So anyone who tells you there's an exact science to this or there's only one way to measure it is probably overcompensating.

Once you figure out your chosen method for measurement, whatever that is, you have to figure out what that means. So that's where expectations comes into play. And where expectations come into play, our emotions and our ego also come into play. So let's tread lightly Now, I've heard [00:03:00] From various sources.

This is me Gathering this from all different sources trying to find an average But you know what those sources might be quoting the same sources and it might turn into a circular thing here I don't know, but I've heard that 50 percent read through from book 1 to book 2 in a series is pretty solid But I've also heard that with Kindle Unlimited if your books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited 70 percent read through from book 1 to book 2 is considered solid for ebooks You might have heard this, you might have heard different percentages, but guess what, there is no standard line for good here.

People like certainty, so they will make up a number to scratch that itch, but it doesn't, in itself, mean anything concrete. So here's another wrench. If your first book is free, then expecting much more than 5 percent read through to book two, assuming book two costs money, is probably setting yourself up for heartbreak.

The industry average [00:04:00] that I've seen, and I think most of this data is from Kobo books, , last I checked, but the industry average is more like one to two percent read through from a free book to a paid book, to the next book in the series that's paid. So does the industry average tell you anything about your book?

. Not really, so even that measurement is like, meh. But imagine that you're expecting something like a 10 percent read through from your first in series that's free to your second in series that's not free, but you do the math and realize it's closer to 3%. Activate downward spiral for some of us, right?

Meanwhile, someone whose expectation was set at 1 percent would see the 3 percent and be like, hell yeah, they love it. And, this is important, Who's to say who's right and who's wrong? Because there is no right and wrong here. We really don't have a clear line. There's so many variables.

So when we're looking at the emotional component, what triggers us emotionally, what triggers our fear, what really gets our ego, , [00:05:00] pacing in circles, it's about whether or not we're meeting expectations or falling short.

There's a trick that a lot of us pick up early in life that involves setting expectations in a particular way to either protect us from disappointment, say we always set them low, or motivate us through the fear of falling short. So this would be setting unrealistically high expectations.

Do you find yourself falling into one camp or the other? That's a really important thing to notice. And has doing this actually gotten you the results you hoped for when you take a step back and look at it? Is it doing the thing you thought it would do? Or has setting your expectations way way low meant you've settled for okay rather than leveling up and maybe feel low grade disappointment at how your life has turned out, or has setting your expectations way, way higher than anyone would reasonably expect left you feeling like you're [00:06:00] always falling short, rather than feeling like maybe you're pretty awesome.

I bet you didn't expect us to go this deep on read through, but you probably should have, right? You know what podcast this is. So our expectations around read through are where things start to get emotionally fraught, and our ego can get a little injured. and want to armor up.

But let's just say that we have already measured read through in a way that makes sense and has adequate data to begin drawing some sort of conclusions. And then we can set what we believe is a reasonable expectation for what we would like read through percentages to look like for us. And let's say that our read through isn't quite where we'd like it to be.

What diagnostics can we run from there? The first thing I would recommend you do is to go and look at the back matter of your book. So that's the easiest place to make changes and tighten things up, especially if you are an indie [00:07:00] and you own all those files and can just upload something new. So open your ebook and flip all the way to the last page.

Do you have a call to action that shows up for the next book before That device starts shooting up all those flares for other books to read in the store, right? Sometimes it'll just pop it up that's in the, in the coding of the ebook, right? So is your call to action actually showing up?

Now, if you want your read through to happen, the very first link anyone sees, as soon as the story ends, should be the one to your next book. It doesn't even have to be on a fresh page. It can be. End story, line, break, call to action, with maybe a link if it's an e book, or an easy, you know, bit. ly link or something if it's a print book.

So if this doesn't show up at the back of your book, your read through will suffer. Period. It will not be optimized, as they say. If you have a bunch of other links and [00:08:00] stuff between the final word of the story and your link to buy the next book, your read through will also suffer as a result. And hear me out, maybe that's okay, right?

Maybe you would rather hit them with a link to sign up to your email list first, because that's a bigger priority than getting them to the next book for you. If you want to make that decision for you, that is totally fine.

But you are choosing to go for subscriptions over read through. over read through if you put the subscription link first. And I hope that you'll remember that when you look at those read through percentages, so that you have the proper context. So let's say that the back matter looks good and you're still not happy with a read through.

The next most likely culprit is that people aren't finishing your book. They may not even be starting it. Frankly, it's really hard to tell. So this is where our artistic egos can Take a big hit.

So if you feel the gut punch that goes along [00:09:00] with considering that someone doesn't like your book, then take a step back from it with me and let's activate our scientist's brain.

Let's depersonalize this. It doesn't mean they don't like you, and it doesn't mean that they don't like your writing. It certainly doesn't mean that you have to stop everything and rewrite the whole book or give up writing altogether.

If those big emotions and generalizations start to pop up for you, What you can do is you can just observe them, because they're kind of interesting, aren't they? It's interesting how quickly our fear can take a piece of data, add a few drops of that fear to it, and really brew up a frothing catastrophe for us.

The human mind is just kind of fascinating in this way, and we, we have the privilege of being able to observe our own. So the most effective use of your time at this stage is to focus on your opening pages and your closing pages. So you can work with an editor or an author whose work you [00:10:00] love, and, and this is important, and who treats you kindly, and you can get feedback from them.

There are so many resources and workshops available online for writing a gripping first ten pages. And a lot of them are free too. Usually you get what you pay for, but if you're just starting out with this work, Might as well start with free. So focus your energy on those opening lines of your book.

Find something hooky that broadcasts to the reader what delights they can expect in the following pages. Show them the protagonist's main dilemma. Cut the info dumps and show something happening. Razzle dazzle them with your tone. I think a lot about the opening pages of Interview with the Vampire and how the tone just, it just grabbed me by the shirt collar and dragged me into the coffin with it. Willingly, I should add, I was all in just from those opening pages. I didn't care where the story [00:11:00] went. It was that tone.

So work over those opening pages. Keep chipping away until you get an opening sentence that makes you go, Oh, hell yeah.

The next thing I would do is look at your ending. Is it satisfying? This is where a developmental editor will come in absolutely clutch. Do the main characters. Particularly, your protagonist, get a satisfying ending for who they are. So what emotion is the reader left with? Are there any unanswered questions that the reader still has?

Any open loops? Maybe something that you've promised to answer in the following books that would make them immediately go buy the next book? Now I'm not talking about cliffhangers here. I know that cliffhangers is a very divisive um, I'm just talking about open series loops. So, like, if it's a romance, the romantic interests probably need to get together, right?

There's a little variation here, , for this with reverse harem, but let's not get into the weeds. [00:12:00] But if it's a murder mystery, is the mystery solved? So those are some of the basic requirements so that you know your genre's requirements to satisfy the reader. And then see if you can also hint towards some other open loops, especially if you're writing in a series.

Maybe there are two secondary characters in your romance who obviously have chemistry and whom readers will want to see in the next book. Or maybe in solving the murder, an even bigger mystery unlocks. Maybe there's like a mastermind in the shadows that you can hint at. Revisiting your book's ending to make sure it's satisfying while also inviting your reader to read more from you in that series is going to be a lot of bang for your buck. And again, a skilled editor or beta readers will be really useful here. If you still have any fucks to give about upping read through at this point, you can have some readers go through your book and simply note everywhere the book [00:13:00] lost their attention and they set it down.

Notice if there are any trends among the readers and where they set the book down or lost interest. Maybe those are scenes you can tighten up, amp up, or cut out altogether. If you notice that people are walking away between chapters as you go through this process, then that's fine. Your chapter hooks might need some attention, right?

You can tighten those up. But at least this way you'll have some data from readers. Again, you might not need to go this deep, and you might not even give enough of a shit about moving the needle to spend time revisiting all this. So that is okay. But these would be the diagnostic steps I would recommend as a reader myself.

As a former developmental editor and as a story coach. Now here's another theory about why read through might be lower than you expect. Just to, you know, mix things up a bit here. You might not be writing books that are easy to inhale, and that's totally legit. [00:14:00] So not all books are designed to be easy to inhale.

Some savored. So while I was writing the Jessica Christ series, which is Packed with jokes and unexpected surprises, I liked to layer it, or I liked to layer it while I was writing it. Um, I, I frequently heard from readers that they loved the series so much that they paced out their reading of it, so that they didn't run out of books to read.

What a compliment, right? I mean, as a writer, that was just such a great thing to hear. Um, at least I took it that way because I know that feeling from a reader's perspective, when I love a series so much that I want to devour it. But then I'm also afraid of what life will be like when I run out of book, right?

And I have to wait for the next one.

But you can imagine that a reading behavior like that might affect those raw read through numbers. So if I'm measuring a 30 day window and people are pacing out each book over a month, it won't look like they're reading to the [00:15:00] next book. So numbers don't tell the full story here. Some savored. Maybe yours falls into this category.

Maybe people take breaks between reading your book so that they don't run out of everything before you publish a new book. If you write dense, layered, or really unique stories that people can't find in a lot of places, this could be affecting your read through. Does that matter to you? Is that actually a problem?

Would you even want to fix it, knowing what the cause of that low readthrough is?

And finally, and this may be difficult to hear, but some folks need to hear it. If you haven't learned about storytelling and the art of writing, if you haven't put in the time to learn what makes a strong story, how to use a variety of sentence structures, , to your advantage to keep readers engaged and how to build tension and emotional depth throughout a book, then you might be running up against that and it might be showing in your read [00:16:00] through.

That doesn't mean you can't learn those things though. It doesn't mean you're a quote unquote bad writer, full stop. That would be the fixed mindset stuff that we don't do in these parts. But why would you be a compelling writer who grips people from the first page if you didn't ever learn from the best how to do that?

You know, why should you just have that skill? So I went to college for four years to study writing and literature, so of course I did learn some things there. , and it's okay if you didn't do that, right? It's okay if you didn't go to college to study this stuff. , maybe that was even a really smart decision.

But it could also mean that there are some basics that you don't even know that you don't know. Like, for instance, just, Pulling something out of the air. , if you're not familiar with what head hopping is, you might want to check that out. There's a bunch of little things like this that we may not know we don't know.

So if you haven't done learning on that, it [00:17:00] might be time.

Sometimes it's as simple as just hitting pause and learning your craft better for the next book, or going back and cleaning up earlier books with your new skills. We can become so scared to look at this possibility of a skills deficit if we carry around the belief that writing is all talent and not learned skills, but thankfully, that's not the case.

It just isn't. So you can learn to be a more engaging writer. You can learn new tricks to keep writers delighted. We all can. There are a lot of tricks that I still have yet to learn. So if you're up against a true skills deficit that's causing the lack of read through, then you're in. Time to do something about it if you want things to change.

In the end, maybe you don't need to sweat read through rates too much, right? I tend not to think about them unless I notice some sort of anomalous drop off between books, and then I'll go and do some sleuthing, some troubleshooting. And I only [00:18:00] check read through on a series. About once or twice a year at that, usually, whichever series is in progress, since I pretty much know what the deal is with my finished series by the time I finish them.

So if your read through isn't what you want it to be, If you're wondering, what if I'm not getting read through, remember that there's still a lot within your control here. So take a deep breath to depersonalize the problem, put on your observational scientist hat, and evaluate if your measurements are useful or robust enough to even work from.

Then check if your expectations are wonky in hopes of saving yourself from disappointment or motivating yourself through fear to work harder, and follow a process for troubleshooting that double checks your back matter, then takes a critical look at your opening, your ending, and where readers might be falling off.

So you can stop anywhere in the troubleshooting process too, remember that. So maybe just [00:19:00] adjust your back matter and then gather data to see if that was the variable affecting the read through rate. If so, if you give it 90 days and you check again and the read through rate's way up, great!

There's always something that can be done. And you never have to do it if you don't want to. So those are two important things to remember. Especially if you publish your books independently, and this is why I encourage people to, you have so much within your control. And you can always make the choice to use that control or not.

But you do have a choice. And when it comes to human suffering, almost every last ounce of it. That we experience can be alleviated simply by understanding that we do have options and we are making a choice, albeit frequently an unconscious one, to think, feel, and [00:20:00] behave the way we do in a given situation.

So that's it for this episode of What If for Authors. I'm Claire Taylor. Thanks for joining me and I hope you'll come back for the next episode. Happy writing.