Day five on Wattpad’s Featured list and there are small improvements. The number of reads has gone up another 20%, and the number of unique readers has also gone up again, to 244. I have gained readers in another eight countries — Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Guyana, Jordan, Norway, and Venezuela — bringing the total to 69. I’ve even had a sale: one, on Kindle in the U.S. (I may have had sales through my aggregator but, not only will I not know for a while, I think the full distribution has not kicked in yet: I could not find my book on iTunes, for example.)

But what, exactly, do the numbers mean?

Wattpad provide absolutely no explanation for their data, and so authors have no way to interpret it. For example, the number of unique readers cannot be an aggregate number because then I could not have gone from 255 down to 218 and back up to 244. Instead, the only explanation can be that this is the number of unique readers spread across the whole of the book’s parts on any given day: while I lose some readers as they progress through the book — and either finish it or abandon it — I gain others as they start from the beginning, and others might just have taken a day off and returned to continue. Consequently, it would be useful to know how many unique readers there have been overall and how many readers finish the book.

The reader engagement graph simply does not make sense to me.

For example, there is a 10% drop off after the end of chapter 25 (where horrid photos of the crime are found and will be explained in the next chapter; maybe some readers don’t want to know?) but then the reader engagement stats for the next chapter are 100% again. How is that possible?

The countries section is problematic.

As noted in my previous posts, the numbers add up to greater than 100%, which also does not make sense. And Wattpad do not indicate if this number represents the percentage of reads or the percentage of unique readers. If the former, then a high percentage in the U.S., for example, would simply mean those readers are progressing farther through the book. This I would expect: with regards to grammar and vocabulary, Baby Jane is likely too difficult for many EFL readers, who are the majority on Wattpad. That 37.47% figure for the U.S. might not necessarily mean, then, that 37.47% of my readers are there; they may simply represent 37.47% of total reads. Who knows? I don’t, and Wattpad are not telling me. (And I am certain the 33.333% in France is a system error: that number, unlike all the others, has not wavered in four days.)

The countries data is also represented solely by a map, and one has to hover over the country to see the data. This is tedious, though my geography is improving.

Where I do seem to be doing well is in the number of votes.

I looked at ten books on the What’s Hot list, with reads between 1.6M and 47.3M reads — yes, that’s really 47.3 million reads, for the 47-part romance The Girl He Never Noticed by sweetdreamer33; has no one offered her a book deal yet? — and determined the average number of votes was 2.397% of reads. So far Baby Jane is averaging 3.542%. If nothing more, the readers I do have seem to really like the book.

But that brings up another issue with Wattpad: despite the hoopla about reader feedback and encouraging comments, readers don’t actually provide much feedback.

In addition to the low voting percentages, the average number of comments per reads is even lower: .509%. Lest there be any misunderstanding, Wattpad is not a writers’ group where you’ll get detailed feedback on readers’ like and dislikes, and some of the comment threads I read were typical inane arguments between readers. No, Wattpad is, like the industry in general, a popularity contest, and that is the only type of feedback you can expect to get. That said, when you get a great comment like this one it can make your day: “Wow! That was a roller coaster of a ride. Truly, truly blew me away with the thick content of the story and the beautiful way you wrote it. I simply could not stop and devoured it over two days. I loved the ending, but in all honesty I loved everything about the book, from start to finish. I am grateful to have stumbled upon this gem on the discover page.”

I do believe, bookaddict1133, that you made my day.

Day four stats:

Reads 7200
Unique readers: 244
Votes: 255
Sales on Kindle or Kobo: 1

Reader demographic by age:
13–18: 26%     18–25: 20%     25–35: 9%
35–45: 3%     45+: 2%     Unspecified (“private”): 40%

Reader demographic by gender:
Female: 46%     Male: 11%     Unspecified: 43%

Reader demographic by country:
Algeria: .119%     Argentina: .119%     Australia: 1.551%
Bahamas: .119%     Bangladesh: .477%     Belize: .119%
Brazil: .597%     Canada: 4.057%     Chile: .477%
Columbia: .358%     Croatia: .358%     Czech Republic: .119%
Dominican Republic: .151%     Egypt: .119%     Ethiopia: .119%
Fiji: .239%     France (includes French Guiana): 33.333%
Germany: .358%     Ghana: .239%     Greece: .119%
Guyana: .151%     Honduras: .119%     Hungary: .358%
India: 10.263%     Indonesia: 2.267%     Iraq: .119%
Ireland: .597%     Italy: .358%     Jamaica: .358%
Jordan: .119%     Kenya: .955%     Korea: .119%
Kuwait: .358%     Macedonia: .239%     Malaysia: 1.551%
Mexico: .358%     Mozambique: .239%     Myanmar: .239%
Namibia: .358%     Nepal: .358%     Netherlands: .358%
New Zealand: .358%     Nigeria: 1.193%     Norway: .119%
Pakistan: .358%     Panama: .119%     Peru: .119%
Philippines: 17.542%     Puerto Rico: .239%     Qatar: .239%
Romania: .358%     Russia: .119%     Saudi Arabia: .597%
Senegal: .239%     Serbia .239%     South Africa: 1.074%
Spain: .597%     Suriname: .239%     Sweden: .119%
Tanzania: .119%     Trinidad & Tobago: .477%     Turkey: .835%
Uganda: .119%     UAE: 1.074%     UK: 3.341%
US: 37.47%     Venezuela: .151%     Vietnam: .358%
Zimbabwe: .239%