📈 Progress Check June 2025
It has been 6 months since my last confession...
Greetings from Newcastle.
December was the last time I invited you behind the curtain to look at some of the key numbers that matter to indie authors. It’s time for an update to see what progress has been made since then, and see how this might impact my plans for 2025. I share this purely for info—but if any of it prompts you to help, I’ve included links so you can take action.
Amazon Followers
Amazon customers can choose to ‘follow’ writers whose work they enjoy. This means Amazon will notify them when the writer releases new titles. Of course, subscribers to Shadows & Nightmares will get my personal updates on new releases etc, but showing support on Amazon is the sort of direct intervention that encourages Amazon’s inner workings to give my work an extra push, so every new follower is greatly appreciated.
December 2024: 241 Amazon Followers (+28).
June 2025: 262 Amazon Followers (+21).
That’s a good jump, but considering last June’s jump was 19 in 3 months, the last 6 months are about 50% behind the pace. If you’d like to signal to Amazon that you’re a fan of my work, you can hit the ‘+Follow’ button near the top of my Amazon Author Pages…
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter which Amazon store you use to follow me, as long as you’re logged in.
Reviews
I don’t push for reviews with a ‘street-team’, but I have to admit I like to see the number of ratings and reviews growing on Amazon, as their recommendation mechanisms are fired up by them.
My books have earned something on somewhere in the range 40-50% of all days this year so far (usually pennies in any given day, with occasional days amounting to a couple of pounds, but it all racks up, and it all helps). The Kindle Unlimited page reads in the first 6 months of 2025 see me on target for only about 60% of 2024’s page reads. Of course, I plan to release a new book this year, so hopefully that will seriously change the game.
A quick search on Amazon US, for Horror in the Kindle ebooks store, ignoring the top 17 titles that were all either crime, or combinations of fantasy, romance, urban fantasy, or dark fantasy, I got to what looked like an actual horror book. Joe Hill’s Jackknife was the highest relevant bestseller I could find in that category at the time. Published in April 20235 the book has 2,387 ratings and reviews (the one I checked 6 months ago had 2,369 - pretty close!). That’s great going, and of course Joe Hill is a very famous writer. I’ve pulled that book up purely to give a sort of baseline for comparison, although it isn’t necessarily a healthy comparison for me.
But let’s keep his ratings in mind while I pull up mine (all data taken from Amazon US on 17 June 2025 - because the US site collates all the international ratings and reviews in its numbers):
Doctor Blessing’s Curse - 62 (+11)
Doctor Blessing’s Rapture - 22 (+3)
A Christmas Blessing - 16 (+1)
The Seance - 60 (+3)
Scattered Ashes - 22 (+3)
Hard Man - 19 (+2)
Tread Gently Amidst the Barrows - 28 (+1)
Dead Shore - 32 (+4)
This 6 months has brought 28 new ratings and reviews, so a little better than the previous 6 months.
What does this mean? Well, six months ago, I decided to concentrate on just getting more words down. The hope is that more new stories will bring more readers. More readers, more ratings (hopefully), attracting more readers in turn. In the meantime, if you feel like helping out, please click through the links above for any of my titles that you’ve enjoyed, and throw as many stars on it as you think it deserves. It’s a huge help.
But with all that said…
… there’s a lot to be said for having interests away from Amazon. I gather more Substack readers every month, and a recent change in strategy on that platform is growing my direct readership (bringing me more people who were already on Substack, as opposed to sign-ups from my ebook giveaways on Bookfunnel). Every now and then a reader upgrades to paid, or best yet, becomes a Founding Member. Returning to crowdfunding with my limited edition paperbacks has been a great move, too. And those limited editions have been well-received by my Founding Members (who get them free as part of their subscription), and by direct customers who purchase from me on my website whenever I ‘open the shop doors’ and offer them up for sale again.
The greatest indicator of how things are going, will come with the release of In Quiet Courts. Let’s see what impact that has on the end of the year.
Thank you, wholeheartedly, for your support so far in 2025.
Sending best wishes and bad dreams,
Jack