It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I should say it now: I’m only going to have this one blog post for the week and I apologise for missing posting on Monday. Easter weekend kept me busier than most other weekends and so I didn’t have time to do the regular Monday post. And next Monday I have family from out of town visiting and so I don’t think I’ll be doing a post then either. I’ll be back with the Monday blog post on April 15th. In fact, I’m only now getting to this post on the Wednesday evening that it should have already been out by. So, I’m going to have to limit it to answering the IWSG question of the month which is: How long have you been blogging? (Or on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram?) What do you like about it and how has it changed?
I’ve been blogging since 2010. Even though it hasn’t all been at A Far Out Fantastic Site, I’ve been blogging altogether for 13 years (the magic number)! I first started by posting just whenever I felt like it. But when I saw that I wasn’t getting enough views, I started posting once every week. After I had been doing that for a year or two, I still was only getting a view here and there. So, I started posting on a regular day each week which was Saturday. I picked Saturdays because, for me at least, Saturday’s a day for sci fi and horror which is the genre I write, read and watch in.
I still wasn’t getting many views. I only got an overall average of 40 views a month and I may be overestimating. That lasted for what seemed like 8 years. So, I moved the weekly post to Mondays after I read that Monday is the day of the week that, on average, blogs get the most readers. A little after I started doing that, the views increased to hundreds a month. Now, for about a year, my blog’s been getting views by the thousands!
Why did it take so long? For one, I think I was getting too technical about how I wrote the blog using things like SEO. It was not only eating up valuable fiction writing time, but also sacrificing the quality of the writing here at A Far Out Fantastic Site. So, I said, “Screw it! I’m going to just write what I care about and not fuss around with the technicalities in hopes of getting more people to find and read my blog.” Also, what helped gain more readers was when I joined IWSG and participated in the monthly blog hop.
So, one of the things I like about blogging is that it helps you to get your writing out to more people. It’s also a venue for announcing your latest writing projects such as my upcoming single short story book that I plan to release within the next month and my full book of short stories that I’ve been working on for the past two-plus years, “Bad Apps”. And there’s no middle man for your blog that your writing has to be approved by, no magazine or news media outlet editor that your work has to go through for approval. You just post it when you see fit. How long have you been blogging or been using a social media platform such as Facebook or Twitter?
Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre, and Pat Garcia! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels!
Until next time . . .
Glad you finally found the right combination. I post on IWSG Wednesdays as that is the highest traffic day for my blog, and then maybe one more Monday in the month. Glad the IWSG gave you an extra boost when you needed it.
ReplyDeleteI dont know where I'd be without IWSG!
DeleteThe first couple years, I blogged into a vacuum, but a blogger class for authors really made a difference. It was online and lasted several weeks. I met Elizabeth S. Craig through that class, too! (And then again a few years later in person.)
ReplyDeleteThat's really neat! There are some really good blogging classes out there. And it's so awesome to meet people through blogging!
DeleteThanks for sharing this post--really. I'm trying to figure out how best to manage my blog. I was posting as part of a weekly blog hop, which brought in readers but was too much work (not only the writing but visiting everyone else). I've also spent too much time worrying about SEO. I love that you built a bigger readership by writing about whatever you wanted. That flies in the face of so much of the advice out there, but it worked for you--and it sure is liberating.
ReplyDeleteNo problem. Thanks for visiting!
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