Monday, January 01, 2024
Jan. blog report & resolutions
Happy New Year to my blog followers. I'll explain what's going on in this blog briefly. I am a writer with 30 books on the market, a few of them badly outdated. When I started actively publicizing my books a couple years ago, I thought my extensive blog system, including one personal blog (out there) with thousands of posts, could be of use to me in publicizing my work. I went about advertising my own books on them, and making them a little more commercial. However my heart wasn't really into making the personal commercial, and as a result, I ended up with 8 commercial blogs and 28 that are still personal, or devoted to various linguistics or esl topics. In tracking them, I divided my attention between commercial, personal, and a few dead ones that I track even though I don't actively try to keep them current.
Of the 36, I'm lucky to post to twelve a month; that's my goal and I hit it this month and then stopped, around Christmas. In tracking I noticed that blog averages (the last three months averaged) are down, but that's because an absolutely enormous September (counted Oct. 1) fell off the cliffs and was no longer averaged in. A theory that I have that blog traffic is roughly product-search-driven, and comes from Google mostly, was supported as I could see visibly that December visits were slightly better than Dec. 1 (Nov.) or Nov. 1 (Oct.) which one could call anemic in comparison to Sept. (which was in some cases ten or twenty times the usual), but which is really more like average. The numbers in general are higher than they were about a year ago and that reflects the fact that surviving and active blogs in general do better in Google year after year.
So I've succeeded in some of my goals and barely got off the ground with others. Month after month I have goals, and these reports help remind me, yet I rarely have the energy after a long haul of reading/writing/other stuff to really devote to the blogs themselves. But here are a few that I want to do in the immediate future:
1. Connect all the writing blogs to each other. They have different purposes but each one could easily showcase the others, if they were all connected. They are already connected to some degree through little square pictures of writers in each one. But that's not really enough.
2. Connect all the esl blogs to one network also, so that, once in my esl world, one can see everything I've done and everything I offer. Much of this is getting rapidly outdated. But no matter; it's mine; it's my world, and I'll need it when I produce Vowels in an Elevator.
3. Considering a new blog for web-boggle, and one for Disney. The Disney blog would be commercial and would help with my new Disney book. I could really do a lot more on the commercial front, making sure people knew I had a Disney book, big mac book, and a war-mart book.
4. Reflect on the purpose of the blogs. A good friend, a good writer, opened a blog lately. It may or may not survive but is one of many marketing things she's done as an indie writer, and I admire her tenacity and skill in such things. And, I like virtually everything she reads, yet still have not deeply engaged with the blog; that says something right there. I'm skeptical. But I also like every marketing trick she does, or at least I follow every one, because I think sometimes she's successsful. And she's definitely more successful than I am.
Of the 36, I'm lucky to post to twelve a month; that's my goal and I hit it this month and then stopped, around Christmas. In tracking I noticed that blog averages (the last three months averaged) are down, but that's because an absolutely enormous September (counted Oct. 1) fell off the cliffs and was no longer averaged in. A theory that I have that blog traffic is roughly product-search-driven, and comes from Google mostly, was supported as I could see visibly that December visits were slightly better than Dec. 1 (Nov.) or Nov. 1 (Oct.) which one could call anemic in comparison to Sept. (which was in some cases ten or twenty times the usual), but which is really more like average. The numbers in general are higher than they were about a year ago and that reflects the fact that surviving and active blogs in general do better in Google year after year.
So I've succeeded in some of my goals and barely got off the ground with others. Month after month I have goals, and these reports help remind me, yet I rarely have the energy after a long haul of reading/writing/other stuff to really devote to the blogs themselves. But here are a few that I want to do in the immediate future:
1. Connect all the writing blogs to each other. They have different purposes but each one could easily showcase the others, if they were all connected. They are already connected to some degree through little square pictures of writers in each one. But that's not really enough.
2. Connect all the esl blogs to one network also, so that, once in my esl world, one can see everything I've done and everything I offer. Much of this is getting rapidly outdated. But no matter; it's mine; it's my world, and I'll need it when I produce Vowels in an Elevator.
3. Considering a new blog for web-boggle, and one for Disney. The Disney blog would be commercial and would help with my new Disney book. I could really do a lot more on the commercial front, making sure people knew I had a Disney book, big mac book, and a war-mart book.
4. Reflect on the purpose of the blogs. A good friend, a good writer, opened a blog lately. It may or may not survive but is one of many marketing things she's done as an indie writer, and I admire her tenacity and skill in such things. And, I like virtually everything she reads, yet still have not deeply engaged with the blog; that says something right there. I'm skeptical. But I also like every marketing trick she does, or at least I follow every one, because I think sometimes she's successsful. And she's definitely more successful than I am.
New Years marketing resolutions
As I sit here on New Years' Eve, my page reads are skyrocketing. It is still morning, yet I'm watching them jump to the point that they are making the other days of the month look very small. So it's an unusual success that people around the world are all reading my books at once, and that I can watch this as I wake up.
But I have worked for most of this success; I have either read other books, or promised to, knowing that on the new year break there would be crummy weather, war world-wide, family conflict, etc. and I would basically just want to bury myself in books. This read-marketing idea is the easiest kind of marketing; it's fun for me, it has clearly visible returns, and authors in general as an audience at least know what they're talking about. I resolve to keep it up. It's the other markets where I really need to get organized and get my feet on the ground.
First, the ACX market. I see this as a growing but completely separate market from the ones I operate in usually. I produced two books in ACX recently but one is not finished, and the other, in spite of coming out in time for Christmas, didn't really do well. I am unknown in the ACX market although I have one book (Five Second Rule) which did alright. I have found a couple of Facebook sites but in general I have no idea where one even goes to advertise an ACX book. Where do the ACX people even look? I am about to put my new book Harvardinates on there, and get it narrated, and in the process I will find out; I'll move in to the market, figure out where there is an opening, and take advantage of it. I have promo codes to give away. I'm hoping to exchange them for reviews, or at least use them. I resolve to move into ACX, get a few more books narrated, figure out how to find my audience, and keep better track of ratings and reviews.
The paperback market, I see as separate from the kindle market. I do poorly in that one too. At first I thought, well, there's nothing I can do about it, I'll put kindle first, concentrate on improving kindle, and maybe paperback will improve a little. It did, but very little. And it's the same as ACX, in the sense that people don't cross markets and wherever they're looking to find their next read, they're not finding me. Or at least that's my interpretation of it. I can increase my kindle ratings by a lot, and have, and my paperback ratings are still abysmal. So what to do? One option is to get out there more with paperbacks in hand and actually hustle them, kind of like I did at the Galesburg Library Author's fair. Or sell them to random travelers at the Knoxville McDonald's or interstate rest area, which I want to do but haven't had the nerve yet. Getting paperbacks in the field is the goal here. If they are in the Little Free Libraries, somebody will find them. Which reminds me: I need to remind readers that I really like Little Free Libraries. I resolve to get my paperback game off the ground.
Enough for one batch of resolutions. I'm trying to keep them measurable, doable, noticeable. I can do that if I try.
But I have worked for most of this success; I have either read other books, or promised to, knowing that on the new year break there would be crummy weather, war world-wide, family conflict, etc. and I would basically just want to bury myself in books. This read-marketing idea is the easiest kind of marketing; it's fun for me, it has clearly visible returns, and authors in general as an audience at least know what they're talking about. I resolve to keep it up. It's the other markets where I really need to get organized and get my feet on the ground.
First, the ACX market. I see this as a growing but completely separate market from the ones I operate in usually. I produced two books in ACX recently but one is not finished, and the other, in spite of coming out in time for Christmas, didn't really do well. I am unknown in the ACX market although I have one book (Five Second Rule) which did alright. I have found a couple of Facebook sites but in general I have no idea where one even goes to advertise an ACX book. Where do the ACX people even look? I am about to put my new book Harvardinates on there, and get it narrated, and in the process I will find out; I'll move in to the market, figure out where there is an opening, and take advantage of it. I have promo codes to give away. I'm hoping to exchange them for reviews, or at least use them. I resolve to move into ACX, get a few more books narrated, figure out how to find my audience, and keep better track of ratings and reviews.
The paperback market, I see as separate from the kindle market. I do poorly in that one too. At first I thought, well, there's nothing I can do about it, I'll put kindle first, concentrate on improving kindle, and maybe paperback will improve a little. It did, but very little. And it's the same as ACX, in the sense that people don't cross markets and wherever they're looking to find their next read, they're not finding me. Or at least that's my interpretation of it. I can increase my kindle ratings by a lot, and have, and my paperback ratings are still abysmal. So what to do? One option is to get out there more with paperbacks in hand and actually hustle them, kind of like I did at the Galesburg Library Author's fair. Or sell them to random travelers at the Knoxville McDonald's or interstate rest area, which I want to do but haven't had the nerve yet. Getting paperbacks in the field is the goal here. If they are in the Little Free Libraries, somebody will find them. Which reminds me: I need to remind readers that I really like Little Free Libraries. I resolve to get my paperback game off the ground.
Enough for one batch of resolutions. I'm trying to keep them measurable, doable, noticeable. I can do that if I try.
