Sunday, August 28, 2011

Year in review

OK, OK, I admit it.  I'm writing this blog on August 23rd, so it's not quite a year, but I'm away on the 28th, so I won't be able to put my exact stats for that day up.  So shoot me.

So I have now had this blog for a year, so I thought I'd talk about how it's grown over the past twelve months.

I'd just like to thank everyone who has fed back to me, encouraged me and followed me over the past year.  This blog has opened up a whole world of gamebook to me.

I started this blog as an education for myself.  In this age, we absorb too much information without analyzing it properly and discerning its true meaning.  I aim to learn more about how to create a good gamebook.  It has now grown to include Twitter and Youtube.

Over the past year, I have written 124 posts (including this one) and had 18045 pageviews (although I'm sure that most of them involve people searching for images based on the searches I can see).  My Twitter account now has 157 followers and my Youtube channel has 2 videos about gamebooks.  I also have a Facebook group with 17 followers.


Things people have asked for more of


Image found here.
Pictures - I will supply more of these.  A picture paints a thousand words.

Vlogs - I liked doing the vlog and I will do more in the future.  I am planning on commenting on my gamebooks in vlog form.

Quotes from players playing a gamebook - I need to start this up again as people asked for it.  I will do this in future.

Lessons I've learnt from this blog


Listen to BlogcastFM.  Most of the things I've learnt have come from this excellent podcast.

Review things ASAP to give them and you the most coverage.  I made a mistake with Destiny Quest.  I scheduled it, but I should have just published it.

Build up relationships with readers - such as having a dialogue with them or emailing them.  It makes blogging more rewarding.

Write lots of posts in advance so that you acn deal with stuff that comes up - this is because real life stuff comes up and when you start putting yourself out there, you start getting emails to deal with.

Think very hard about a good title - I called the blog virtual fantasies as a mixture of Virtual REality and Fighting Fantasy.  I then tried to get another name (lloydofgamebooks.blogspot.com) but it didn't work as I had two blogs with different followers.  I got rod of the new URL as it was causing confusion.

April A to Z - Doing this got me lots of pageviews and followers.  It was well worth it.

Stats


As you can see from this, after a dip in November and December (when I did very little posting), my views have gone up 
every month.  I think August will be the month when I hit a plateau.
My top posts are mostly reviews.

Here are my top reference sites - thankyou guys!

The future


I am actually going to do more gamebook writing in the future.  I hope to release a small gamebook every month.

I have written most of the posts for the rest of this year and some for next year.  I have a lot of posts of inspirations for my gamebooks.

I have more reviews to write about gamebooks and the websites that they appear on as well as analysis of gamebooks and their characters.

I'm looking forward to sharing my second year with you all :).

Happy gamebooking!  And for those of you writing a gamebook to share, keep it up!

6 comments:

  1. Do your stats count people following your blog via a feed reader, eg Google Reader? I read most of your posts there, and I think you have a few subscribers.

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  2. Good news, Stuart!
    Congratulations and Happy gamebooking!

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  3. Yep just checked, you have 55 subscribers on Google Reader.

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  4. @torus - Thankyou for bringing this to my attention. I'm glad to have 55 followers on reader:).

    @Ikaros - Thankyou for your attention and your comments.

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  5. Good stuff Stuart - glad to see my blog sends you some traffic. You make some good observations about timelyness - I'm terrible for leaving posts till long after they're relevant. Here's to the next 12 months!

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  6. @Zhu - many thanks for the traffic and for giving me the idea to do a year in review. I enjoy your blog a great deal. Here's to the next 12 months!

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