Page Views and Dead Gods

Blogging is a most curious thing. I have often thought of conducting some experiments to see if my chosen topics generate a difference in the popularity of a post. If I correlated popularity of a post to comments received I’d think that talking about my pets were my most popular. If the past is any indicator, then I would think that would make that a good topic for every post I ever do going forward.

On the other hand, if page views are my indicator, then I see something else. The most popular post I’ve ever done, which predates any crusading for followers or anything else I’ve ever participated in in hopes of gaining additional viewers for the blog, is nothing more than a YouTube video. (click to see) which is, admittedly, extremely awesome.

Weird. Also interesting to note I’ve never gotten a single comment on that post.

So, I’ve tinkered about and tried to notice things I do that turn folks off – I think my book reviews/reports have been less than stellar, as they seem to generate less interest than most anything else. My complaining about how much everything sucks seems to get a few views. I find the whole process mystifying. I’ve not learned anything. I think my next goal will be to spend a couple of weeks and post at different times, different days, and differing frequencies, just to see if anything stands out.

Of course that means I would have to get blogger to start posting my stuff when I tell it to. I mean, the scheduling feature is nice, but it would be a much more powerful tool if it actually posted the damn thing when I scheduled it, I think I would be a much happier camper if that were the case. I know, keep dreaming.

And then I wonder, what’s the point? By any objective standard I’m a pretty lousy blogger. I mean, my posts aren’t as well narratively pleasing as Andrew’s, I’m not as sociable as Alex (seriously, do you visit every blog on the internet?), I don’t rant as powerfully, or often, as Rogue, and I certainly don’t talk about anything compelling at all. Hell, I usually can’t be bothered to visit here sometimes, I don’t know why I would think anyone else would want to.

But then I remember, I’m doing this in support of my writing, ah, building a platform, you know synergy, cross media marketing, fan base stuff. Whatever. In fact, I caught myself the other day thinking that I should start a podcast. Then I thought. Maybe I should actually have something for someone to read. You know, since that’s the point.

So, I’m proud to announce that I’ve put up a short story on Kindle. Wait. Did I say proud? that's a strong word. I'll say I'm nervous enough about missing out on something that I went ahead and did it. I'll do Smashwords, B&N and all that later I suppose, but I'm lazy, and stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to get the formatting right. It also sucked because I intended to include a bunch of sketches and character notes, but, in what I'm sure is only the universe mocking me, having all that included at the end in a "extras" section screwed up the formatting for the whole story. Stupid computers. I can't even put a larger version of the cover that I worked so hard on into the book, so all anyone can see is that stupid little thumbnail. Dammit.

Regardless, I'll put up a link to it soon on one of the sidebars, and you may have noticed that I changed my background here into something blindingly tacky and in your face, you know, to promote myself. I'll leave it up for a week or so and switch it back to something a bit less... confrontational.

And the more I think about it, I really probably should have done one more full edit of that manuscript before I put it out there. Oh well, too late.

With that said, here's the link.

So, whatever. Give me money. Or don't. I have tentative plans to put something else out in the next month or so, when I do I'll probably drop the price of this one to free. Assuming of course, that I can.

No stock photos for me. All from scratch baby! Er, don't ask about the guns though.