Recap
I’ve spent the last 30 days writing and posting a blog every single day. Okay some days were cheating. I’m sorry, no body is perfect. I’ve stayed up late nights finishing posts, I’ve carried posts into the next day and still posted for the day. I’ve learned a lot
What I’ve Learned
I’ve learned that doing this (gestures to the blog) daily is a full time job. If you want do do something like this, having a whole other full time job is not going to make it easy.
I’ve lost more sleep, literally, over this month. Simply because I’ve stayed up late on work nights to get a post done before midnight. I’ve fallen asleep in front of my computer.
But man I had fun.
I’ve also learned that no matter how you post or what you post, it’s still not going to make people read. Especially people who know you.
es to the blog) daily is a full-time job. If you want to do something like this, having a whole other full-time job is not going to make it easy.
I’ve lost more sleep, literally, over this month. Simply because I’ve stayed up late on work nights to get a post done before midnight. I’ve fallen asleep in front of my computer. Oh, and also, last night I had my first dream about blogging.
But man I had fun.
I’ve also learned that no matter how you post or what you post, it’s still not going to make people read. Especially people who know you.
Top Posts of the Month
Excluding this one, of course. Let’s see which posts did the best, and try to figure out why.
- I’m Doing It Again: July 16: 45 Views, 18 Visitors. This post was about how i was beginning to dream about being a teacher again.
- Album Review: “The Wiser Moon” – Ap Harbor: July 27: 24 Views, 24 Visitors. This post was an album review for a friend’s band’s album. I’m sure it did as well as it did because of the connection to him and his band.
- The Things I Use: July 29 Views, 13 Visitors: A poorly and quickly written list of items I use in my “business”.
- I’m Doing a Terrible Job: July 5th: 25 Views, 15 Visitors. Literally about not doing well at this nonsense. lol
I have zero legitimate explanation for why these particular posts preformed the way they did. The posts that were fiction, and the posts that I put more effort into, like “Giant African Land Snails” were all on the mid to low range of views.
My highest performing post of all time is one from March. It’s about how I forgot to cancel a yearly subscription to a weight loss/meal tracking app. I get notifications almost daily about new likes. Yet I cannot seem to get view information.
Worth it?
I’m guessing I won’t know if I’ve earned any extra ad revenue from the full Birthday Month of Blogs, until tomorrow or later, as it seems to post that info for the month. So, financially, probably not.
But any any other way? I supposed “consistent” posting might have helped me get new followers, but all of the posts from the month and historically are fairly all over the place and no cohesion. I cannot seem to stick to one type of blog!
What Would I Do Differently?
I have no plans for doing this again anytime soon, but if it turns out I’ve made some change off of it I might try again. But if I did there are several things, I’d do different.
First off, I would preplan and possibly prewrite all my posts. Including any extras, I might want to make for them, book covers, videos, images, etc. This would save me time and worry. I’d know what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it.
I would also be more consistent, with posting and with content and promotion. I have several different social media accounts that I use strictly for sharing blog posts and related things. I would better utilize these outlets to promote the posts.
Finding a way to do this and not add more stress to my already enormous pile of stress trash, would be key to convincing me to try this again.
What’s Next?
First off, I’m going to take a small vacation from posting here. If something comes to mind and I want to share it here, I will. But other than that, at least for a week, expect good old inconsistent Crystal to return.
After that, I do plan on making “Randomized Fiction” a permeant fixture. Even if I only gave myself about 24 hours to write and post it, I had fun doing it. This time, though, I’ll “spin the wheels” a week in advance and work on it and post a week later. I will be posting all of these and other posts to the podcast, as well.
I’ll also be adding a page (these are linked at the very top of the website) dedicated strictly to “Pretend Fantasy Novel” details. There will be a thorough recaps and updates to progress, which I will return to regularly working on soon.
There will be more coming soon, but right now, I’m ready to catch some zzzzz…..
Crash Landing 