As a self-published indie author, sharing your work with the world is often a complicated, confusing process with a steep learning curve – and no matter how long you are in the industry, you will never stop learning. Just recently, I observed something strange while going over my eBook sales data on Amazon. This lead me to discover a strange quirk in the system that I never really gave a second thought about, but might be of some interest to my fellow authors.
Mystery Page Reads
It all started the other day when I was going through my Amazon sales reports. I recently uploaded a new book to KDP and wanted to see how many presale orders I had received. However, I accidentally clicked the wrong link, and ended up on the ‘Page Reads’ section and found something odd.
A few months earlier, I had made the decision to remove all my books from Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program in favour of distributing my work via multiple eBook platforms. So far, the switch has considerably boosted my exposure and my sales. But because I am no longer enrolled in KU, the ‘Page Reads’ section (which displays the number of verified page reads used to determine how much an author is paid by KU) should remain at zero.
However, for some reason, I had several hundred verified page reads. This didn’t make sense, since my books had been out of KU for several months by this point. My first thought was that perhaps I had neglected to remove one of my books from KU. It would be an easy mistake to make. But when I checked each book listing, I confirmed that they were all set to wide distribution. So what was happening?
Who or What are Ghost Readers?
I asked a few author friends, but nobody seemed to know what was happening. Most suggested it was some kind of a glitch on Amazon’s end and that, eventually, the sales reports would automatically update themselves when the mistake was identified by KDP. But this seemed like an oddly specific kind of error. So I did a little digging on Google and soon discovered the answer – and it was so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself.
The page reads were not an error. Amazon wasn’t glitching. These were valid, verified page reads that I would get paid for (yay!) and there is a very good chance this phenomenon will happen to you too, if it hasn’t already. It all comes down to your reader’s choice of reading device.
If you use a Kindle or similar eBook reader, then you probably learned early on that leaving the device connected to the internet 24/7 drastically reduces the battery life. But putting the device in ‘airplane mode’ when reading saves battery life and therefore reducing the need for frequent charging.
But this simple action has an unintended consequence. You see, eReaders use the internet to share data about your reading habits. What books you browse on the online store, how quickly you read them, how often you read and what titles you have borrowed or purchased. When the device is offline, it can’t share this information, so service providers like Amazon will not receive this data until the next time the device is connected to the internet. This could be days, weeks or even months after the fact. These offline readers are referred to by some users as ‘ghost readers’ as they and their reading data remain invisible until the next time they go online.
Thus the mysterious jump in page reads. Apparently, one or more users had read my books while their device was offline and therefore the data wasn’t shared with Amazon until the next time they decided to take their eReader back online. Even though my books had been out of Kindle Unlimited for several months, those page reads occurred before I removed them from the program – it just took this long for the data to make it’s way back to Amazon. But this kind of data delay isn’t exclusive to Kindle Unlimited.
Data Delays on Other Platforms
Other platforms have similar reading data delays for the same reason. But there are also delays in sales reporting which are much simpler to explain. Ever had a day when you’ve had a sudden boost in sales for no apparent reason? It might be explained by the fact that smaller eBook platforms (which is basically most of them other than Amazon) don’t have the capability to display book sales in real-time. Say someone buys your eBook at 10am. That sale may not appear on your sales report for hours or even days depending on which distribution channel the sale occurred on. Some small platforms only refresh author sales reports once a week. Some only monthly. It’s at best unpredictable, so obsessively monitoring your sales reports multiple times a day may be an exercise in futility.
Conclusion
So, if you’ve ever stared at your books sales data and seen nothing change – don’t lose heart. It’s possible you may have had many sales and/or page reads. You just haven’t seen them come through yet. Ghost readers and delayed sales data could be the culprit. I’d never heard of either of these things until recently, but they explain a lot of what I’ve been observing. I hope this helps you better understand the confusing world of books sales. If it did, consider sharing this post on your social media.
My latest book, My Big Gay Family Christmas Wedding Disaster (The Nolan Family Book 2) releases November 30, 2024! Preorder now on your chosen eBook platform here:
Alex Leslie - Author 
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