Calculate the average revenue per reader across your book series. Optimize pricing and marketing by understanding true reader value.
Understand how much each Book 1 reader is worth across your entire series, not just one book.
Justify higher ad spend on Book 1 when you know the full series LTV justifies the acquisition cost.
Price Book 1 lower to acquire readers when series LTV shows profit comes from later books.
Series Lifetime Value (LTV) shows the total revenue generated by acquiring one reader to Book 1. If 70% read Book 2, and 70% of those read Book 3, your LTV compounds across the series.
For a 5-book series with $3 average royalty and 70% read-through, each Book 1 reader is worth approximately $10.50 in total revenue. This justifies spending more to acquire Book 1 readers than you'd earn from Book 1 alone.
High series LTV enables aggressive Book 1 marketing, perma-free strategies, and loss-leader pricing because you profit on the backend.
70-80% is excellent, 50-60% is good, below 40% needs improvement. Measure read-through in KU pages read or by tracking also-boughts and ranking patterns.
Often yes. If series LTV is $15 but Book 1 earns $3, you can afford to price Book 1 at $0.99 or even free to acquire more readers profitably.
Strong cliffhangers, consistent quality, shorter gaps between releases, and ensuring Book 1 delivers on genre expectations all boost read-through rates.
Calculate if making Book 1 free is profitable based on series LTV.
Measure ad performance using full series LTV, not just Book 1 revenue.
Plan optimal release schedule to maximize read-through momentum.