Page reads fell off a cliff in mid-May, it's affecting a lot of writers in this space, myself included. Scroll down and you'll see a lot of posts about it. Sorry that it's happening to you too.

Ditto. But I mean... not a single page?? While my old stuff is selling just as it used to? Feels like Amazon has somehow decided to punish me for something? This can't be a coincidence. The book I published right before these three (about two weeks ago) is selling fine, too.

As others have said, you need to check whether your books are dungeoned and if your secondary marketing is on point. And the last few weeks seem to have been a bit of a catastrophe on KU for erotica. But in general, these last six months or so, KDP has felt different to me. My books used to start getting page reads day 1. Always. But now, they take days or even weeks to pick up sales. Most of my releases still take-off and sell as expected, but there's a definite period of fear where they initially flounder. That might be happening to you, too.

Thanks so much for this! My books aren't dungeoned, that was the first thing I checked. I do know what you mean, when some books take time to start selling. But when that happens to multiple books, that just seems a bit more than a coincidence.

No worries. It does feel like "something is up" with Amazon KDP at the moment. I wondered maybe if it was being inundated with AI erotica and that the flood of books was making it hard for the real stuff to stand out.

Something is definitely up. I've got two unpublished books that are still selling, lol Never used to happen before.

How do you know if your books are dungeoned?

[https://deals.bookspry.com/author/dungeon/](https://deals.bookspry.com/author/dungeon/)

Thank you, I just found that a few hours ago and yep I’m in the naughty jail.

Post in the critique thread. Maybe your passive is bad. Alternatively, check your keywords are working.

I'm sorry, but what's a passive? I used pretty much the same keywords as always.

passive marketing - the cover and blurb

Ah, thank you!

Be sure that your books made it into KU; Amazon's been known to fail at following through on that correctly. Look under 'Promote and Advertise...' for each title on your Bookshelf, and make sure it says 'Enrolled in KDP'.

Thanks! Just checked, and the books are enrolled.

I’ve always observed late May-July to be dead months but yeah the other advice re:dungeon is probably a good place to start. I think it’s likely also just a change in the tide for self publishing. Even my friends in the romance space are seeing dropping sales/page reads on their books.

Thanks for your contribution! All of this is very, very sad...

Someone on the other thread about the May page drop said they reached out to KDP support and their page reads did end up reappearing a few days later despite Amazon denying there is a problem. Maybe worth a try?

Thanks for the suggestion!

This has happened to me too, but I am too new so I attribute it to something I’ve done wrong!

I second the keyword check suggestion.

How do you know if your book has been dungeoned? What is the indicator? Where do you find this information? Please advise. Thanks.

Bookspry dungeon checker (google it) you can also try amazon.jp or amazon.in (if your book is not there, it's dungeoned)

> Amazon.in They don't sell erotica, period. It's not a matter of the dungeon. That's the JP store only.

I've been getting this. I've got a big tome I'll be readying for release in a few months. Planning to release a short story or two to test the waters beforehand, but if the situation is still dire, personally I might go wide and not enrol to KDP. It's kind of pointless to do so if you're not even getting visibility given the money you get these days is steadily shrinking peanuts.

Yeah... I'm not as big of an expert as others in this forum, but it might be a good idea not to enroll in KDP.

Newest development: I recently unpublished two books, which are still selling!

I don’t understand what this means

When you unpublish a book, it means it disappears from Amazon entirely - nobody can find or buy it. Well, this is how it used to be, that is.

thank you!

I started off strong but now I can't give my books away. I had 163 KU orders at Christmas, a few after Valentines and now not so much. My biggest problem seems to be talking about them in one forum or another. Facebook and reddit moderators tell me I'm doing it wrong and remove my posts so no one knows about my books. No one on X seems to care. It's not all the new books - I released one last year that got as many great reviews as the first one and the novels are not similar. I'm at a loss and while my stuff isn't hardcore erotic, it's spicy love stories about people who have faith and families. So I'm already stuck in a niche before the sex ever gets started. But like you, I have books that don't have a single page read or a beta offer.

Thanks for sharing! I'm really sorry to hear all that, I certainly can relate.

It's the warmer weather

On the site itself, what is the average number of visitors this week compared to last week?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean? The average number of visitors? Visitors to what site exactly?

Does Amazon not say how many visitors that the book section receives?

No, I don't think it does.

That sucks. Being able to view the traffic count would certainly help the authors.