What Is Read-Through, and What Is a Good Rate for a Series?

Read-through is the share of the people who read one book in your series who go on to read the next one. With made-up numbers: if 100 people read book 1 and 40 of them read book 2, your read-through from book 1 to book 2 is 40%. KDP does not show it as a number, so you work it out yourself from your reports. Below: how, when to measure, and what a drop can tell you.

What is read-through?

It is a ratio between two books. Take the readers of one book and ask how many of them went on to the next. You can work it out for book 1 to book 2, for book 2 to book 3, and so on down the series.

It matters because a series pays its way when readers keep going. If most readers of book 1 stop there, more money for ads on book 1 buys more readers who stop. If most go on, book 1 is doing its job. The post on how to market a book series covers what to do with that.

How do I work out read-through from my KDP reports?

KDP has no read-through report, so you set two books side by side.

1. Pick a period, such as the weeks since book 2 went live.
2. Look up how many copies of book 1 and of book 2 were sold in that same period. Use the same period for both, and count the same kind of sale for both.
3. Divide book 2 by book 1.

If your books are in Kindle Unlimited, copies are only part of the picture, so also look at pages read. KDP counts each page with a standard measure called a KENP, a Kindle Edition Normalized Page, so the count does not depend on the reader’s device or font size, and your total pages read appear in the KENP Read section of your reports (KDP’s KENP page). Divide the pages read of each book by that book’s KENP length and you get a rough number of full reads. Compare those the same way.

Here is an example with made-up round numbers, to show the sum and nothing more. Say book 1 sold 200 copies in a period and book 2 sold 80 in the same period. Read-through is 80 divided by 200, which is 40%. Those numbers are invented. Yours will differ, and a single period is a rough guide.

How long should I wait before I measure it?

A few weeks after a release at the least. Readers do not finish a book the day they buy it, and a reader who bought book 1 last month may only start book 2 next month. If you measure in the first days after book 2 goes live, the number will look lower than it will end up.

This is my advice, not a KDP rule. I would measure after a few weeks, again a few weeks later, and judge the trend and not one reading.

Is book 1 to book 2 the same as book 2 to book 3?

No, and I would track them separately. Book 1 to book 2 tells you whether readers who liked the start wanted more. Book 2 to book 3 is a smaller group, because it only includes people who already went on once, so it usually tells you whether the series itself holds readers.

If both fall, look at what the books have in common. If only the first step falls, look at book 1.

What does a drop in read-through tell me?

Not much on its own, but it tells you where to look. These are the places I would check, in this order, and this is my advice from my own series:

• How book 1 ends. Does it leave a reason to read on, or does it feel finished?
• The back of book 1. Does it name book 2 and link to it, and does the link work on every store you sell in?
• The wait between books. Readers who waited a long time may have drifted off.
• The series page. Check that the books are on one page and in the right order. What if my series page is wrong? shows how to fix it.

Change one thing at a time, then measure again after a few weeks. If you change four things at once, you will not know which one worked.

What is a good read-through rate?

There is no official figure. KDP does not publish one and I do not give one here. Rates you see on blogs, in calculators and in forum threads come from other people’s books, in other genres, with other prices, and none of them tells you what yours should be.

What I trust is your own trend. If the rate from book 1 to book 2 is stable or climbing, that is a good sign, whatever the number. If it falls from one release to the next, find out why. Whether to write book 3 at all comes into it too, and should I write book 2 if book 1 didn’t sell is where I start with that.

Want help reading your own numbers?

Read-through is simple to calculate and harder to act on, because the right fix depends on your books. In my group coaching we go through authors’ own numbers release by release and decide what to change next.