When it comes to my writing, book sales, and clicks for each book from which countries, maybe I’m a bit over the top, but I am retired and, grandchildren taxi driver apart, do have time on my hands.
I use Bitly to shorten my website links and anyone who follows me on Twitter, Bluesky, or Facebook will know that I use a separate link for each country for each book, to make it easier for readers from abroad to go to their own particular Amazon site. One of the incredible uses of Bitly is that it gives you statistics for each link and because I have time, I log these at the end of each month. I also get statistics regarding clicks to those links and also the links to my website at www.StephensonHolt.com and where those links have come from. (Google, X, Bluesky, Amazon etc.)
Is this interesting, or overkill? Here are two things that my statistics have thrown up recently that I have found interesting.
Canada.
I was selling books in Canada, links were being said to be from Canada, mainly through Twitter X, and these have both dried up from Canada even though they are on the rise from the rest of the world. When I say Canada has dried up, link clicks have gone from an average of seventy a month to zero in a matter of months. What the statistics do not say is whether this is down to Canadian anger with the USA tariffs, and whether Canadians have turned totally to Kobo or not. Do you have a view? I would be interested to hear from you, especially the Canadian you.
Google.
Links from Google to my books and website have increased dramatically. Website and book visits through Google averaged seventy-five a month, then I added a BLOG PAGE to the website and the numbers have rocketed to a current 2118 for July. If you are one of my blog visitors, I would be interested to find out whether you visit just the blog, or other pages while on the site, because that is information I do not have.
Thanks as always for support from readers and writers,
Stephenson Holt.