Yesterday Baby Jane went live on Wattpad. Baby Jane’s baseline Wattpad stats prior to being Featured were:
Reads 95
However, these are mostly mine from uploading the document and fixing line breaks. Wattpad’s system is a bit quirky that way: upload your document and that counts as a read; fix a typo and your own visit counts as another read. Also, reads do not represent readers: as the reader progresses through the parts of the book, each part clicked on counts as a read. Instead, Wattpad provides a different value, unique readers:
Unique readers: 15
I actually failed to note this stat yesterday, but, based on the number of parts and my own uploads, I estimated fifteen readers.
Votes: 3
Reader demographic by age:
13–18: 43% 18–25: 14% 25–35: 14%
45+: 14% Unspecified (“private”): 14%
Reader demographic by gender:
Female: 86% Unspecified: 14%
Reader demographic by country:
This is a particularly weird stat as the aggregate adds up well past 100%; percentages are clearly not accurate. I consider this stat really only useful to see where I might be gaining new readers. Note that Wattpad provides this stat to 1/1000 of a percentage point; I will round up or down.
Canada: 20% France: 33% Honduras: 17%
India: 14% Mexico: 14% New Zealand: 8%
Philippines: 8% UK: 9% US: 83%
After one day the stats are as follows:
Reads 2000
Unique readers: 125
Votes: 92
Reader demographic by age:
13–18: 22% 18–25: 29% 25–35: 10%
35–45: 5% 45+: 5% Unspecified (“private”): 30%
Reader demographic by gender:
Female: 47% Male: 10% Unspecified: 43%
Reader demographic by country:
Australia: 1% Bangladesh: 2% Brazil: 1%
Canada: 8% Chile: 1% Columbia: 1%
Czech Republic: 1% France: 33% Germany: 1%
Honduras: 1% Hungary: 1% India: 9%
Indonesia: 5% Italy: 1% Macedonia: 1%
Mexico: 14% Namibia: 1% New Zealand: 8%
Nigeria: 2% Philippines: 8% Senegal: 1%
South Africa: 2% Tanzania 1% Turkey: 2%
UAE: 2% UK: 9% US: 83%
Vietnam: 1%
Day one conclusion: The number of unique readers has multiplied by eight. I’ve picked up readers who identify as age 35–45. Those aged 13–18 have dropped off and have been replaced by those aged 18–25.
This may confirm my belief that Baby Jane is a little too difficult a read for a younger demographic, but it could easily just be that many are now included in the unspecified age group, which has doubled.
Gender-wise, I’ve picked up readers who identify as male.
Readers who have chosen not to specify their gender have more than doubled. What does this mean? That many Wattpad users choose to keep their age and gender private and, as I gain readers, these percentages then naturally increase? Likely so.
The countries stat is the most beneficial stat for me.
For the last few years I have only sold Baby Jane through Amazon and Kobo; the other sales channels like Apple and Google were cancelled long ago. From the Amazon U.S. Kindle site I have sold to 35% territories, but Amazon do not provide country information on such sales. On the other Amazon Kindle sites I have only ever seen sales from the UK, Germany, and France, and these were very few. From Kobo I have sold copies only in Canada, the U.S., Australia, France, New Zealand, and the UK, but the bulk of sales have been overwhelmingly in Canada and Australia where Kobo dominate the ebook market. I have never been able to market Baby Jane successfully outside the largest English-language markets.
Therefore, to now see readers from an additional 21 countries is a welcome result. Will it translate into sales? Who knows? And unfortunately only Amazon and Kobo provide stats in real time; I will have to wait a few months to see if any sales through my aggregator result.