Increasing Blog Readership

Happy Saturday morning!  I'm looking forward to Monday!

I know what you're thinking: "what a strange thing to say, this 'looking forward to Monday' guff, on a Saturday morning."

At least, I'm thinking that, and I'm the one who said it.  I can only assume that you're thinking something similar or even much stronger.

So what's going on on Monday?  That I know of, not a whole lot.  At least, it's not a whole lot that I'd normally look forward to on a sunny weekend morn.  At work, we have a new module starting, just like we do every six weeks, and though it does mark the conclusion of the last significant project for a while--heck, a couple of months, at least!--it's still not that big of a deal.  We're launching other efforts, and doing some stuff, but again, it's all not really worth worrying about on a glorious weekend.

Were you wondering about personal events?  Nope, nothing major there either.  No birthdays, no anniversaries, nothing like any of that.

What, then?  Okay, I'll come clean.

It's got to do with the number 106.  And a milestone.

The milestone in question is 20,000 blog views.  As I write this, this very blog is at 19,894 views.  That leaves 106 to go, and at the current rate that'll happen by Monday.  It will very likely actually happen tomorrow, but I like to be conservative in my forecasts.

What's especially exciting about this milestone is that I wasn't really close a month ago.  When I accepted the 365-post challenge, as 2012 clicked over to 2013, the blog was at just under 18,000 views.  Think about that for a second, and put it up against the fact that I started the blog back in February of 2011.  By the time the blog turns two, then, I will hopefully have sailed right by the 20K mark, and in turn I'll have reset my sights on a larger number.

So what?  Why do I care?  Is 20,000 views something special?  At 20K does the shade of Robert Jordan come to help me write gooder?  Do I get paid more for that many views?  Nah, none of that, not at all.  I remember hitting 8K views last year and deciding that I was groovin' along, so much so that it was time to turn on the ad revenue generator.  Woo hoo!  I was going to be making some mo-nay, right?  Wrong.  A month or so later I still only had about two bucks in the till (and it takes ten to ask for a payout).  I killed the ads then, not because I figured I'd never make it up to ten, but because I realized that's not what I'm doing the blog for. 

I'm doing the blog because I like to write.  That, and I need practice at it.

The fact that people are coming here to read what I've written makes the number seem that much cooler.  And the rate of y'all coming here to read it is steadily increasing, with ten percent of the total views coming in the past 30 days.  That's not viral, but it's slow and sustainable growth.

How did I do it?  I really didn't.  There was a time last year when I turned myself into the Tweet-monster, pumping out blips about every post I made, sometimes three or four times a day.  At the same time I clamored and clanged on every Facebook group I could think of.  It didn't help much, though, so I quit doing it.

Joe Konrath wrote one of the first blog posts I ever read (and can no longer find), and in it he said that people read what we write not because we hammer them into submission with social media but because we write good stuff.  I've taken that to heart.

So all that said, thank you for coming here, and for coming back.  Keep watching for an upcoming announcement on when Book 3 will be available.  Trust me, it'll be soon.

And--sorry about the limerick.  I couldn't resist.

- TOSK