2001st Post!

This is my 2001st post! I missed post 2000 because I wrote in answer to one of WordPress’s prompts. But I’ve actually stuck to this for 2000 posts!

My first post was Calling All Creatives, and it had four views. I get a few more views now, but would still like more readership. My most popular post was an anniversary post which got 65 views. My 2000th post was on the prompt “My Most Valuable Lesson” today.

What have I learned from 2000 posts?

One doesn’t get to 2000 posts by deciding to get there; one keeps writing one at a time until it happens.
Posts are better with pictures.
Using the supplied prompts boosts number of readers, and some of them stay on as regular readers.
WordPress does a far better job of sorting out riff-raff than Blogger. I have no more links from webcam girls showing up in my feed.
I can’t predict which posts will become more popular.
Not every reader likes the post, but enough do.
2000 posts is a lot of posts.

Here’s to 2000 more posts!

A Lack of Pattern

I’m trying to analyze which posts of mine are most successful — prompted posts? My own ideas? Short posts? Long post? Personal posts? Posts about writing? I have come to the conclusion that I can’t predict what will get me more viewers.

I’ve always thought prompted posts performed better than non-prompted posts, long posts better than shorter posts, and posts about writing better than personal posts.

Yesterday, a short prompted post about what personality traits I disliked — with no title — performed better than any post I’ve had in the past couple weeks. This is expected because the prompted posts appear to get more circulation. Yet I’ve had other prompted posts only get as many likes as one I’ve written without a prompt.

My best performing post of all time had to do with my wedding anniversary. Other posts (even about birthdays) have gotten little attention.

There seems to be a randomness to what plays well and what does not, which means I’m learning nothing about how to improve my traffic.

Putting Myself Out There

An indie writer needs to market themselves. It’s perhaps my worst failing that I don’t do a great job marketing myself. I have trouble exclaiming to people, “You need to read my writing!” Call it Midwestern Female Syndrome¹, but it’s real.

This blog is part of marketing myself. To be honest, the main purpose of this blog is to talk about writing and my thoughts about it. When you read my blog, I hope you’re thinking “That’s what it’s like to be a writer.” Hopefully, it also makes you want to read what I’m writing.

Just like my newsletter right now — blank.

I post now and again on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram using Loomly, a social media manager. I post mostly silly things (did you know it was National Kitten Day on Tuesday of this week?) but that’s to get my name out there. I also advertise my books there.

I also write a newsletter every three weeks. If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll be familiar with what my newsletter is like. I talk about life as a writer, my books, and plans in a chatty way. I try for more atmospheric, with pieces of my surrounding life included. Once I wrote about the gift I received of an Emotional Support Pickle, for example. If you would like to be on my newsletter mailing list, please drop me an email here.

These are all suggested ways to promote one’s books, but I can’t help but think I’m not doing these right. I’m not good at self-promotion, as I have said above, and would like to get better. My Midwestern Female Syndrome keeps me from bragging too much. Would anyone like to read a book?

Midwestern Female Syndrome is the internal desire to be perfect combined with the desire to be outwardly unremarkable; to be outstanding but not to stand out.

The explosion of visits yesterday — I’m curious.

Yesterday’s post hit 173 readers, which is three times the average amount of reads I get for a post!

Thank you, everyone! Please come back!

I wish I knew who all of you were so I could thank you personally.

I wonder how many of you are people I know and how many people came to visit for the first time. I expect that one-third of you are regular readers, and that half of those are people I know. (Hi, Lanetta!)

That means 2/3 of you visited because you were attracted to the concept of graduation either through my Facebook (in which case you know me), Twitter, or search terms on Blogger, or because you were just bored. Or maybe you were an agent, but I only gave my blog address to one agent so far.

I have no way of knowing who you are, and as they say, curiosity killed the cat. Each of you has a story. Each of you has a reason to visit — whether it be “Because I’m graduating,” or “Because I was bored,” or “Because I’m a regular reader”, or “Because it sounded interesting,” or “Because I know you,”or “I have no idea”. Each individual reason has a story.

I wonder how many of you will be back to read this post. In a way, it doesn’t matter, because this IS the Internet, where we read anonymously and write anonymously, even if we’re writing nasty dreck on Facebook. For all the information-sharing, we don’t really know each other here.

But what if we started to?