The Indie Author Experiment · Month Two · October 2026
October was
CRAZYYYYY!
31 chapters in 31 days. More than 6,000 lifetime pageviews. More books being read. More friends. More chaos. And 124 cans of Coke Zero.
A letter to the Rebels
Dear Rebels, OCTOBER WAS CRAZYYYYY!!!! I can hardly believe we made it. I kept my word and published one new chapter of The Chosen every single day. Writing, editing, the illustration, the HTML and the publication itself all happened on the day the chapter went live. Every morning began with the same unavoidable fact: by the end of the day, another chapter had to exist. There was no room for the usual author’s self-sabotage, no time to indulge blank-page syndrome and certainly no opportunity to hold another committee meeting with my doubts. I had to sit down and write. Rebels, it was BONKERS. And it was great.
The funny thing is that I already miss it. October shifted my priorities: I read less, published fewer book reviews and let my crazy solo podcast series take a little holiday. Meanwhile, Before October Ends started finding readers, and their feedback made me ridiculously happy. We disappeared into Maasverse research, investigated the oddities of the publishing world and laughed ourselves silly over the Scammer Awards. This month contained rather a lot of chaos, but it was the kind I wanted to be living.
What I hadn’t expected was the community growing around all that work. New WordPress readers appeared, little hearts and thoughtful comments arrived, and I met wonderfully talented authors, some of whom I now speak to almost every day. There is something genuinely moving about another blogger spending time with your words. To everyone who read, followed, commented or simply came back: I see you, and I appreciate you. So far, October has been my favourite month of this experiment. Now, Rebels, shall we examine the evidence that the old internet still works?
Milestone 01 · The website
REBELSSSS.
We passed 5,000 views.
Total website pageviews · February 26–October 31, 2026
I went back through the WordPress history, right to the little website’s earliest days. In its first few days, it registered 95 pageviews; there were months when I wondered whether anyone would ever find it. By August 31, the lifetime total stood at 1,061. Then I launched the Indie Author Experiment on September 1, and everything began to change. The next two months brought another 5,035 pageviews, taking the cumulative figure to 6,096 by October 31. The chart tells that story more clearly than any motivational speech ever could.
From the very beginning
Source: WordPress site statistics. February covers February 26–28 only. Monthly visitors are unique within each month; they must not be summed as unique people across the entire year.
One important distinction: these are pageviews, rather than 6,096 different individuals. A reader can open several articles, and I rather hope they do. October alone attracted 1,238 visitors, compared with 810 in September. On October 26, WordPress also awarded me the 200-post milestone badge, and October became our most-liked month so far. I don’t have a verified monthly like-count to publish, but I saw the comments, follows and hearts coming in. When people tell me nobody reads blogs anymore, I think about this little corner of the internet and smile.
Milestone 02 · The monthly comparison
The website stopped whispering.
| Website | September | October | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Views | 2,168 | 2,867 | +32.2% |
| Visitors | 810 | 1,238 | +52.8% |
| Posts published | 84 | 92 | +9.5% |
| Pages published | 4 | 2 | −50% |
Publishing ninety-two posts in October, compared with eighty-four in September, gave the website more reasons to be discovered. We added fewer standalone pages, which seems a fair trade-off: the month was spent filling the house with chapters, reviews, investigations and the sort of articles that make someone want to stay. For me, the most important comparison is the rise in visitors. It suggests the website’s audience is expanding, not merely that the same few people are clicking more often.
Milestone 03 · Organic discovery
Google God found the front door.
| Google Search | September | October | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks | 79 | 248 | +213.9% |
| Impressions | 2,198 | 9,359 | +325.8% |
| Click-through rate | 3.6% | 2.65% | −0.95 pp |
GOOGLE GOD, darling, I SEE YOU. Search impressions rose from 2,198 to 9,359, while clicks climbed from 79 to 248. The click-through rate slipped as Google showed our pages to a much wider audience; being seen more often doesn’t mean every searcher will choose to visit. What matters here is the direction of travel: people looking for books, reviews and research were increasingly finding our work.
The Maasverse investigations, international release-party guides, reviews and serialized fiction gave searchers different entry points into the website. That is the fascinating thing about a blog: an article written to answer one question can introduce a reader to an entire library of other stories. I started this experiment to discover whether long-form writing still has a place online, and October offered a rather encouraging piece of evidence.
Milestone 04 · Social media
Some platforms grew.
Some needed a nap.
| Social platforms | September | October | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram followers | 166 | 378 | +127.7% |
| Instagram content views | 10,750 | 12,959 | +20.5% |
| Pinterest impressions | 393,589 | 568,251 | +44.4% |
| Pinterest interactions | 20,517 | 27,737 | +35.2% |
| Pinterest outbound clicks | 6 | 19 | +216.7% |
| Facebook content views | 826 | 994 | +20.3% |
| Facebook interactions | 119 | 95 | −20.2% |
| Facebook followers | 6 | 8 | +33.3% |
| LinkedIn impressions | 3,288 | 3,112 | −5.4% |
Instagram gained 212 followers during October, taking us from 166 to 378. I remain an extremely reluctant participant in the business of recording myself talking to a camera, so I find it quite funny that the writing continues to attract people. Pinterest was having its own party, with substantial impressions and interactions. Its outbound clicks interest me most, because those represent occasions when someone actually decided to leave the scroll and follow a link.
Facebook’s content views increased while interactions fell, and LinkedIn’s impressions declined by 5.4%. I also noticed fewer suspicious pitches arriving around the same time. Can I prove the two things are connected? Absolutely not, but a quieter scam inbox is hardly a tragedy. Social media has a habit of rewarding us with a spectacular number in one column and an awkward little decline in the next; October was a good reminder to examine both without panicking.
Pinterest October data covers October 1–30, not the 31st. Instagram September’s historical Metricool export reports 10,750 views; our original September wrap-up had reported 10,747. This table uses the same historical source for both months.
Milestone 05 · Readers
People are reading my books.
| Amazon KDP | September | October | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kindle Unlimited pages read | 400 | 1,409 | +252.3% |
| Books sold | 2 | 2 | No change |
| The Chosen preorders | 0 | 2 | +2 |
| Sales + preorders | 2 | 4 | +100% |
Rebels, this is the part that makes me emotional. Kindle Unlimited recorded 1,409 pages read in October, compared with 400 in September. Somewhere, somebody opened one of my books and kept turning the digital pages; that matters more to me than I can explain. We also recorded two completed book sales and two preorders for The Chosen. They are different kinds of transactions, and I am celebrating both, because each represents someone taking a chance on the stories I have written.
And the reader feedback?
Three more reviews arrived, bringing my Goodreads author profile to an average of 4.19 stars across 21 ratings. That figure has a particular meaning to me because of what happened at the beginning of this experiment. One person initially gave a book five stars and wrote a kind review, then changed both after I refused a request for payment. Other low ratings appeared at a time when I had no confirmed sales or ARC copies circulating. The circumstances struck me as deeply suspicious, though I cannot verify who was behind every account.
I considered asking Goodreads to investigate and decided to leave the ratings where they were. They’re still included in that average, alongside the feedback that has arrived since. In other words, I did not need to erase an uncomfortable beginning to enjoy the progress that followed. I wanted to see what would happen when readers began finding the books on their own.
Amazon brought another happy moment. The English relaunch of Before October Ends: A Life for a Life shows five stars from two ratings, while the earlier English edition has seven ratings averaging approximately four stars. Then the Brazilian Portuguese edition, Antes Que Outubro Termine: Uma Vida por uma Vida, received its first five-star rating. Rebels, that one made me cry. The Italian edition is still waiting for its first rating, and it has a place on November’s list of goals.
Goodreads and Amazon rating totals are snapshots observed on November 2, not audited October 31 closing balances. Ratings across listings are not treated as distinct readers.
Milestone 06 · The writing marathon
31 days. 31 chapters.
One exhausted writer.
| Books reviewed | September | October | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distinct books reviewed | 16 | 14 | −12.5% |
| The Chosen: English chapters published | 10 | 31 | +21 |
On Halloween, The Chosen reached Chapter Forty-One, The Wedding, and the web serialization was complete. I had begun publishing the story on September 21, but October was the real endurance test: thirty-one chapters, each written, edited, illustrated, formatted and published on the same day. There was no finished manuscript waiting in a drawer to rescue me from a difficult morning. The deadline forced me to trust the work instead of spending hours negotiating with myself, and I learned a great deal from that uncomfortable freedom.
Thirty-one chapters, in thirty-one days. Written, edited, illustrated, formatted in HTML and published, all on the day.
That marathon came with a trade-off. October brought seventeen review posts, but three were additional language editions of reviews already published, leaving fourteen distinct books compared with sixteen in September. Podcast plays and downloads also declined 12.5%; I particularly missed the solo episodes where I sit and yap about whatever has happened that week. I could have tried to keep every part of the operation moving at maximum speed, but October belonged to the novel, and I am very happy with that decision.
Still a reviewer, though.
My work as a reviewer continued, even if I lost a few positions on Goodreads’ best-reviewers list and now sit at #39. The latest snapshot shows 302 ratings given, 121 reviews written, 17 author followers and 284 Goodreads friends. NetGalley, meanwhile, reports an 86% feedback ratio, above its recommended 80%, with 22 approvals and 19 feedback submissions. I love reading and supporting other authors, and these figures still matter to me. They simply share space with a writing life that became considerably busier this month.
Milestone 07 · Rebel investigations
The Maasverse, the scammers and our beautiful chaos.
Our research desk had a particularly busy October. We published eighteen ACOTAR-related articles, following the leaks, the countdown, the theories and release-party news across different countries. Each question seemed to lead to another, which is how a perfectly reasonable investigation becomes an afternoon spent opening seventeen browser tabs. Rebel Notes and our other publishing investigations kept moving too, although the unofficial comedy prize surely belongs to THE SCAMMER AWARDS. Rebels, I still laugh when I think about the emails that inspired them.
Podcasting and music
The podcast featured conversations with authors including Sean Robins, Lacunae and Elise Posledni, and music opened another creative door. In the October 4–31 Spotify for Artists snapshot, my songs recorded 78 streams from nine listeners, along with nine saves and four playlist additions. The average worked out at 8.7 streams per listener. Here is the detail I love: I personally know ONE of those listeners. The other eight? I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING CLUE WHO THEY ARE. Strangers are discovering the music, and that is a rather wonderful feeling.
Spotify for Artists music figures cover October 4–31 (28 days). The podcast is measured separately; only its percentage change is reported here.
The only statistics that truly matter
Let’s discuss the Coke Zero situation.
Four cans of Coke Zero at 330 ml each, plus three litres of water, every day for thirty-one days: the figures are all there in their magnificent, entirely unnecessary glory. I have been obsessing over website growth and book statistics, but apparently the one thing we could measure with terrifying precision was my beverage consumption. At this point, Coke Zero probably deserves its own line in the acknowledgements. Academic research of the highest order, Rebels.
The people who made October possible
Harper. Lacunae. My husband. And every single Rebel.
Before we finish, I want to talk about the people behind this month, because a daily writing deadline does not happen in isolation. Harper Dale and Lacunae, you helped me enormously. You encouraged me, challenged me, gave me the push I needed and reminded me to keep going when my confidence began to wobble. I don’t think either of you fully realises how much that support meant, but I hope you know now. You were everything to me during this extraordinary month.
My husband deserves a very special thank-you as well. He cooked most of our dinners while I was buried in chapters, studying and researching the details I needed for The Chosen. That practical, everyday kindness gave me more hours to work and fewer things to worry about. Darling, you made room for me to write, and I know exactly how much that mattered.
To the authors who became friends, the readers who discovered my books, the fellow bloggers who left comments and little WordPress hearts, and everyone who came back for another chapter: thank you. Some of you I talk to every day; others I know only by a username. Every visit and message represents a person choosing to spend time in this little world I am building. I see you, I appreciate you, and I love each and every one of you.
A special note from my inbox
239 emails, Rebels.
Yes, really.
A little practical housekeeping for the authors waiting to hear from me: I currently have 239 emails about ARC requests to answer. I will do my best to reply to everybody by the end of this week, and the updated ARC review calendar will go up next week. First I need to catch up with reviews that fell behind while I was writing The Chosen each day. Every book entrusted to me deserves proper attention, and I am grateful for your patience.
There is also something lovely coming to the podcast. November will bring a special guest, and we are going to begin recording episodes in Italian as well. More voices, more conversations and another language in which to share the books and people I care about. I cannot think of a better way to begin the next month.
The next chapter
What October taught me.
September was the month I began this experiment; October was the month I discovered how much could change when I committed to the work. The numbers gave me evidence, but the people gave the project meaning. I am building a life around reading, researching, writing and publishing, and I am learning that I can give one part of it my full attention without treating a quieter week elsewhere as failure. It turns out the old internet still has room for writers, long articles and readers who want to stay awhile. That is a lovely thing to carry into November.
A special request from me to you
Amazon Kindle preorder · The Chosen by Lupe Farkas
REBELS.
GO PREORDER
THE CHOSEN.
Rebels, I have a special request. The Kindle preorder is open for the darker, expanded, uncut novel edition of The Chosen—the story we lived through together, one chapter at a time, throughout October. This version takes that world further, and I am enormously proud of it. If the serial kept you company, if you fell in love with the characters or simply enjoyed following this ridiculous creative marathon, please consider supporting the book with a preorder. This expanded version is FUCKING AMAZING, and every reader who takes a chance on it means the world to me.
PREORDER THE CHOSEN ON AMAZON ↗The complete, expanded Kindle novel · Amazon preorder
Keep exploring the rebellion
Letters from the rebellion
Keep a little space for the old internet.
The next chapter of this experiment is already beginning. If you’d like to follow the books, the podcast, the ARC reviews and everything else November has in store, you can join the newsletter below. I promise there will be plenty of stories to tell—and, knowing me, at least a little chaos.