On October 31, I sat down with a spreadsheet and a simple job. Look up every book I’ve published and write down what’s actually there. Ratings, reviews, rank, and whether it shows up on Google. Don’t fix anything, just record it. I figured it would take an hour and sting a little. It took longer than an hour, and the sting didn’t land where I expected.
Here’s the starting line. I’ve written eight books, and five of them are published. Those five show up as nine listings on Amazon, because one of them is a five-book communication series. The oldest came out in 2022, and the newest came out this year. For a long time, when someone asked how the books were doing, I’d say something vague and change the subject. This series is where I stop doing that and learn, in public, how to actually get my books into readers’ hands.
What I Tried
I built an audit sheet with one row for every live listing. The columns covered Amazon ratings, written reviews, Goodreads, Best Sellers Rank, and whether the book shows up on page one of Google when you search its exact title. I also tracked which formats were live, the last time I promoted each book, and how many free copies I’d given away. The last column was the one that mattered most: “What surprised me.” A week before, I’d answered the harder questions from memory, like when each book came out and roughly how many sold. Then I went and looked at the real pages.
What Happened
Eight of my nine listings have zero ratings on Amazon. The one that has any, The Ultimate Guide to Working From Home, has a single five-star review. I had forgotten it was even there. None of my books are listed on Goodreads, and not one shows up on the first page of Google for its own title. The two oldest books got social posts at launch and sold fewer than five copies each. The rest have sold zero.
The one number that looked good fooled me. Working From Home showed a rank of #10,114, and for a second I felt something close to pride. Then I checked and saw it was a rank inside one small category, not the whole store. Its real paperback rank across all books is 8,809,512. That was the moment the audit stopped feeling like a chore and started feeling honest. A number can look like progress and mean almost nothing.
Then there’s Kindle. Seven of my nine listings have no Kindle edition at all. On audit day, seven of my nine listings had no Kindle edition at all. You could buy the paperback on Amazon or the eBook from my own store, but if you read on a Kindle, you were out of luck. I also gave away 35 free copies to friends and family, five each of seven titles. Not one of those turned into a rating.
That wasn’t my only try at getting reviews, either. Earlier this year, I ran a reader copy group for Adversity Intelligence. I wanted 20 readers, settled for 16, and sent codes mostly to people I already knew. Zero reviews came back. Most of the emails landed in spam or the Promotions folder, and honestly, I’m not sure the people I picked were all that interested. I ran it once and never tried again.
The worst find came while I was fixing my own store. Three books, The Whole Life, Story Architecture, and the five-part Mastering Productivity series, were listed in my store and on my Library page. They had never been uploaded to Amazon. They were written, but they weren’t published, and I didn’t know. There’s no team behind me catching things like that, so nobody did. I moved them all to draft. Around the same time, I fixed a study error in Fueled with Purpose and realized the whole book needs a full rewrite. I’ve pulled it from sale while I rewrite it, so if you go looking for it right now, you won’t find it.
What I Learned
The zeros didn’t surprise me. I’d told myself the books weren’t moving because I hadn’t put real effort into them, and the audit proved it. The answer in the “last promoted” column for most rows was one word: never. I kept making excuses about building everything else first. What did surprise me was how much readers depend on Kindle, and how many doors I had left closed without noticing.
The bigger lesson is harder to say out loud. My marketing skills are seriously lacking. I know how to finish a book, because I’ve done it eight times. Getting a book read is a different skill, and I’ve barely practiced it. Free copies to people who love me aren’t marketing, and neither is one launch post followed by silence.
I’m not sure yet which effort will matter most. Better descriptions, Kindle editions, reviews, and video are all on the table, and I don’t know which one moves first. What I do know is that guessing isn’t a plan. Writing the real numbers down was the first honest thing I’ve done for these books since I published them. It’s not much, but it’s a real start.
What I’m Trying Next
Next lesson, I’m rewriting the description for Adversity Intelligence from scratch. The description is one of the first things a reader sees, and I want to find out what changes when I stop writing it like a summary. I’ll show you the old version, the new version, and what I learned in between. I’m also getting the unpublished books uploaded for real, starting with the Mastering Productivity workbooks and journal, since they need the least work. Story Architecture comes after that.
In April, I’ll run this same audit again and see which numbers moved. Maybe some will, and maybe none will. Either way, you’ll see them. If you’ve ever made something and quietly filed it under “didn’t work,” what would your own audit show?
R.L. Canty | Negus.Leo Publishing
