One Year · No Paid Promotion · Everything in Public
Week 3. Apparently I Have Been Busy.
Three podcasts. Six books. Approximately twenty-three emails. Two books sold since this experiment began. Kindle Unlimited readers. A serial novel being written in real time. And somehow I fell behind on the experiment about how much I was posting.
Dear Rebels, welcome back to Week 3 of my indie author experiment. The last few days have been very, very busy. So busy, in fact, that I managed to fall behind on the daily posts of an experiment about posting every day. I feel this is exactly the level of professionalism you have all come to expect from me.
During the last few days I recorded three podcast episodes with authors, answered approximately 23 emails, read six books whose reviews will be appearing during the next few days, continued publishing content, worked on the website and somehow decided this was also the perfect moment to begin writing The Chosen in real time. Because apparently having free time makes me uncomfortable.
The Chosen started yesterday and the plan is completely reasonable: I write a chapter, build the page, publish it and then wake up and do the whole thing again. For forty chapters. What could possibly go wrong?
Yes. The website is homemade.
Rebels, there is something you should know because this makes everything considerably funnier: the HTML of this website is done by me. I am still learning. I break things. I stare at code as if intimidation might make it behave. Sometimes I change one tiny thing and seventeen completely unrelated objects develop emotional problems.
So yes, as our dear “Flat” friend from last week very kindly observed, this entire operation is homemade. The books, the posts, the reviews, the podcast, the website and the questionable HTML decisions made under the influence of Coke Zero. Extremely homemade. I may put it on a badge.
The scammers appear to have developed survival instincts.
There has also been one unexpected benefit to publishing this experiment and showing you some of the scam emails arriving in my inbox: they stopped writing to me. I think I scared the scammers away. Imagine spending three paragraphs telling me you are an internationally renowned publishing expert and then discovering there is a genuine possibility your email will become tomorrow’s entertainment.
Apparently transparency also works as pest control.
Am I tired?
Extremely, Rebels. The level of Coke Zero in this household has increased accordingly, and Coca-Cola has still not contacted me to sponsor this chaotic operation.
Coca-Cola, if you are reading this, please understand that I have demonstrated exceptional brand loyalty under increasingly difficult working conditions. My inbox remains open. Preferably for sponsorship discussions and fewer people promising to make me a bestseller by Thursday.
The experiment · Actual readers have entered the building
Two books sold. KU pages read. Tiny numbers, very real humans.
Since this experiment began, two copies of Before October Ends have sold, and Kindle Unlimited reading has started too.
Are we buying the lake house yet? Absolutely not. At this speed I may currently be able to afford one decorative stone from the driveway.
But these are two actual books that went to actual readers, and somebody is turning pages on Kindle Unlimited. Three weeks ago this entire project was a question. Now there are people on the other side of it reading.
That matters enormously to me.
Week 1 vs Week 2 vs Week 3
Okay. Bring me the percentages.
Now we get to my favourite part: numbers. Week 1 looked enormous. Week 2 looked like somebody unplugged the internet. Week 3 climbed back up and, in a few places, passed the first-week numbers entirely.
There is one very important piece of context before anybody starts drawing motivational arrows on LinkedIn: Week 1 had help. NetGalley reposted my content during that first week, which gave the account a lovely external visibility boost. I was thrilled, obviously, but Week 1 should never be treated as a normal organic baseline.
| Metric | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 2 → 3 | Week 1 → 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram views | 3,700 | 501 | 2,004 | +300% | -45.8% |
| Instagram interactions | 185 | 50 | 252 | +404% | +36.2% |
| Instagram net followers | +6 | +4 | +6 | +50% | 0% |
| LinkedIn impressions | 511 | 309 | 539 | +74.4% | +5.5% |
The number I really like
Instagram views in Week 3 remain below the NetGalley-assisted Week 1 peak, but Instagram interactions are 36.2% higher than Week 1. That is much more interesting to me than simply recovering the original reach.
LinkedIn also climbed 74.4% from Week 2 and finished 5.5% above Week 1.
Week 1 had NetGalley amplification. Week 3 is showing me what happens when this little ecosystem starts doing more of the work itself.
Attention
The experiment launched, NetGalley amplified us, strangers arrived and the first visibility spike appeared.
Reality
The outside spike disappeared and the numbers showed us what the floor looked like after the initial excitement settled down.
Recovery
Reach returned, interaction strengthened, LinkedIn passed Week 1 and the early signs of readership continued instead of disappearing.
Google Search Console
Google God became considerably more efficient.
During the earlier seven-day Search Console snapshot from 29 August to 4 September, LupeFarkas.com recorded 15 Google clicks from 572 impressions, giving us a click-through rate of approximately 2.62%.
For 13 to 19 September, we again recorded 15 Google clicks, this time from only 338 impressions. Same number of clicks, far fewer appearances. The click-through rate rose to approximately 4.44%, a relative improvement of around 69.2%.
And on 18 September alone, the site received 6 clicks from 41 impressions, giving that day a CTR of 14.63%.
Google showed us less and people clicked more efficiently.
I shall continue feeding Google God.
Goodreads · Week 3 snapshot
Reviewer Lupe has apparently become a department.
Goodreads currently shows 279 ratings, 99 written reviews, a 4.59 average rating and #44 Best Reviewer.
Ninety-nine reviews. Goodreads could not give me the psychological satisfaction of one hundred before I took the screenshot. Of course not.
Still, this side of the project has become something I genuinely did not expect. Authors are writing to me, books are arriving, conversations are becoming podcast episodes, and reviews I wrote months ago are beginning to behave like permanent searchable pages instead of disposable posts.
Which brings me to somebody very special today.
Publication Day · 22 September 2026
Today belongs to A New Witch in the Northwoods.
Congratulations, Elise Posledni. 🖤 Rebels, this one is very special to me.
A New Witch in the Northwoods was the very first book NetGalley gave me that became a review on this website. At the time I was still figuring out what this strange reviewer side of Lupe Farkas was going to become. Elise’s book was there right at the beginning.
I had absolutely no idea that a few months later authors would be filling my inbox, reviews would be appearing in Google Search, Goodreads would have me sitting at #44 Best Reviewer and conversations that began with books would start turning into podcast episodes.
So yes, Elise and this witch have a very special little place in my heart.
My first NetGalley review, still here months later and still part of the story.
And our story with Elise is not finished. Elise Posledni will soon join me on the Imperfect Rebel Podcast. Today we celebrate the book, and very soon we get to talk to the woman who wrote it.
Meanwhile, I apparently needed another project
The Chosen has begun.
Yesterday I opened another door. The Chosen is now being written and published in real time, with a new chapter arriving every day as we move toward Halloween.
Chapter One begins with Ksenia in rainy Scotland, an academic obsession with demonology and the sort of research decision that sensible people would probably abandon considerably earlier.
I am writing this story while you are reading it. Again, excellent life-work boundaries.
A reminder that I also write books
Would you like to personally improve next week’s sales statistics?
I spend an impressive amount of time telling you to buy everybody else’s books and then occasionally remember that I wrote one too. Excellent marketing strategy.
Before October Ends: A Life for a Life is available in English, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. Since this experiment began, two books have sold.
Perhaps this week we can become dangerously ambitious and add another one.
Before October Ends
A Life for a Life · The Tuscan Trilogy · Book One.
Prima che Ottobre Finisca
Una Vita per Una Vita · Trilogia Toscana · Libro Uno.
Antes que Outubro Termine
Uma Vida por Uma Vida · Trilogia Toscana · Livro Um.
End-of-week diagnosis
So, is the experiment working?
Three weeks is nowhere near enough time to answer the big question. This is a one-year experiment. We have barely unpacked the snacks.
But after Week 3, I can say this much: we are growing. People are interacting. Google is sending readers. The podcast is growing. Goodreads is growing. Authors are finding me. Old reviews are still working. Two books have sold since the experiment began. Kindle Unlimited reading has started. And yesterday a completely new piece of this strange little ecosystem opened with The Chosen.
The part I love most has very little to do with percentages. I am meeting extraordinary people while doing all of this.
So yes, Rebels, I am exhausted. My Coke Zero supply is under significant pressure. My to-do list has developed its own to-do list. I have six reviews waiting to escape my notebooks, three podcast conversations waiting for you, today’s chapter of The Chosen waiting to be written and approximately twenty-three people who already know I answer email far too quickly.
Week 1 gave us attention.
Week 2 showed us the floor.
Week 3 gave us recovery, stronger engagement and more evidence that the early signs of readership were not a one-day accident.
I’ll take it.
Continue the rebellion
Follow the chaos somewhere convenient.
If you have made it all the way down here, you may as well make the questionable decision permanent.
And now?
More books, more reviews, more podcast conversations, more numbers, more questionable decisions and another chapter of The Chosen.
Assuming the HTML behaves.
Assuming I behave.
The HTML has better odds.
Love you, Rebels. 🖤