If you have the time, you can check and see that every day in the month of January 2015, I made at least one post per day. I’ve been thinking about challenging myself to making one post per day on this blog in 2015, but wanted to get through one month before committing to the idea.
So, consider me committed. And frankly, for agreeing to do this, I should be committed.
My theory: Daily posts = more readers = more site traffic = an overall stronger platform.
Your theory probably = do less posts, idiot, and the posts you do, make them quality. Quality is better than quantity!
And it is! I’m not disagreeing. A great feature of Word Press is that you are allowed to schedule posts in advance. Many of my short posts are written and scheduled to appear on different days. I write a bunch in one sitting when I have that most precious of commodities: free time.
MY SELF-IMPOSED RULES
1) 1 post every day now until Jan 1 2016.
2) These posts do not have to have any level of awesomeness. In fact, I’m fairly certain there will be busy times where I will simply post something like “I like waffles!” or “How’s everyone doing today?”
3) I will try my best not to allow quantity to override quality. These short posts can be rattle off quickly, so hopefully I’ll make time to post more in-depth material. This might even lead to more than one post a day, though only one post a day is required.
SUBSIDIARY GOALS
One post per day on this blog for the whole year is all I need to consider myself a success. However, here are some other goals I’d like to accomplish this year:
1) Comment on at least one other WordPress blogger’s blog per day.
2) Tweet one tweet per day.
3) Said tweets or comments do not have to be Shakespeare but can be short and sweet as time allows.
PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS – GOALS BASED ON THE NUMBERS
Based on figures from last year, I have noticed that when I don’t post for long periods of time, the best I can hope for is around 10 visitors (average) a day.
Last year, during my Halloween daily post-a-thon for the last half of October, I noticed a spike in visitors to around 35-40 (average) daily. This is when it first popped into my mind to do a 2015 year long post-a-thon.
At the time of this writing, I’m averaging 35-40 site visitors per day. I believe this is due to daily postings.
I’m also seeing an increase in blog followers. I had 400 at the start of the year, and about 450 now.
I had 2000 twitter followers at the start of the year, I’m at around 2500 now.
I’m not sure if there is anyway to guarantee this, in fact I’m certain there isn’t – but here is what I am hoping for:
By the end of 2015 – to have 1000 blog followers (i.e. people who click that little follow button on my wordpress blog) and 5000 twitter followers.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q – Could this all blow up in your face?
A – Yes. Yes it could.
Q – Are you setting yourself up for disappointment?
A – Yes. Yes I am.
Q- I can see it now. You post 364 out of 365 days then on Dec 31, 2015 you get hit by a bus.
A – That bus better have Wi-Fi.
Q – Shouldn’t it be about quality over quantity?
A- Yes.
Q – Then why this quest for quantity?
A – Because as wannabe writers, we are all basically pouring our drops into the same water bucket. There are so many of us and blog readers and twitter followers only have so much time. If you don’t catch them at the time they’re checking their feeds, then chances are, you won’t catch them. More content = more chances to attract readers.
Q – That’s rather Machiavellian.
A – (turns around in my swivel chair, petting a white cat) Muah ha ha! MUAH HA HA!
Q – Who is asking you these questions?
A- I am.
Q – You’re interviewing yourself?
A- Yes.
Q- Takes a big ego do to that, doesn’t it?
A – It does.
Keep me honest folks! If you see a day where I don’t post, call me out on the carpet and pelt me with verbal tomatoes!
365 Days. 365 Posts. 1 Nerd. The Bookshelf Battle 2015 All-Year Post-a-thon is officially announced!
Bookshelf Battle 
Good luck! While I couldn’t do this, the most popular blogs I follow do post at least once a day, so I hope it helps you move on up in the world.
Surely there’s enough Star Wars material to write about everyday!
After reading this, I agree. You do need to be committed. As I enjoyed it thoroughly, I should be there next to you, but I feel as though I’d be in good company. All that said, I don’t really focus too much on trying to get followers and readers (but you know I’m checking my stats every 32.3 seconds.) By training, I’m a computer programmer, however, by some stroke of luck (the jury is still out as to whether this was good or bad luck), I landed myself a job as a research analyst, which means I spend my entire day looking for patterns. There are a few things that appear to generate likes and sometimes follows more than anything else: Poetry. I’m not [censored] kidding you. Write a good poem, you will double your usual likes, which I tend to think will get folks to actually look at the real witty stuff you’re writing, and result in followers. The other thing, inspirational stuff. My first inspirational post was a quote from a Todd Snyder song, something to the effect of: Inspiration, it’s what people call it when you make shit up. Before then I was shouting into a totally empty room. Now, I get a couple of hits a day, around 8ish on average, nothing like what you’re seeing, but respectable for someone who just started in November. Another thing that seems to help – commenting on peoples blogs, especially those that have strong followings. If your blogs are good (I am enjoying yours), this is likely to turn into follows, and maybe even the attention of said blogger, which could really help. Especially when you’re not like me and don’t ramble on in a comment that’s longer than the original post. Now that I’ve reiterated a whole load of stuff you already know, I’ll wish you good luck and watching to see how it goes. Good luck!
Thanks. I wanted to do it for one month before “committing.” Scheduling posts in advance does help. This post was actually written a month ago, and I’ve seen progress since then, as my numbers are above what I mention in this post. I’m up to around 550 wordpress followers, over 2800 followers, and I just started Google+ this week and I have about 60 followers there.
I hate to refer to readers as “fish” – but we’re all swimming around in this Internet pond, every post is a net, and every post catches a few readers. The more posts, the more people read. “Volume” does seem to be the name of the game.
There is a method to my madness – I hope in at least a year I’ll have a novel written and then I’ll have a good platform to self-publish.
Also, I had a post awhile back about whether writers should write everyday, and people had different opinions. Some said no, only when inspiration strikes. My feeling is writing something everyday, even if it’s gibberish, is like a mental workout that keeps the writing muscles limber.
I love this blog. It is becoming something I look forward to working on every day.
And by the way, thank you for reading and commenting, as readers and commenters make blogging worthwhile.
I like waffles too.
Who doesn’t? What’s not to like?
those pancake loving bastards….
I do am challenging myself to post once a day. Like you, I also schedule posts in advance (I am trying to work two months in advance, but that would mean I would have all my March posts scheduled by now, which I don’t, so… =\ ) but what I need to get better at is just sitting down and WRITING. I’ve been bad at that recently due to a variety of factors: laziness, new puppy, and spending too much time publicizing my blog instead of creating content are the top three right now.
Similarly, I have a goal for end-of-year Twitter followers (800 real goal / 1,000 stretch goal). I didn’t make a goal for blog follows, but maybe I should. I’d also like to get up to 100 likes on my facebook page, but that seems to be growing much more slowly than the rest of the channels. I’d also like to have a daily average of 250 pageviews by the end of the year…but we’ll see.
Good luck!
Ugh, I too* am challenging myself.
Yeah, I’m really curious where the optimal balance lies between promotion and production. My own philosophy is that (with a minimal baseline of well-designed, well-executed promotion) the best way to build an audience is doing more of what you actually do.
I’m really cautious about spending so much time trying to get (say) Twitter followers who might read my books that I forget to write the actual books. But you also kind of need a core readership before mere volume of book output will create a significant draw.
I’m just getting started, but like I said, I imagine there will be many times this year where all I’ll be able to put up is something like “I like waffles.” I’ll try my best to make every post a winner, but there will be some that just meet the once a day requirement.
Page views or visitors, which one is the best? I tend to focus more on visitors because each visitor is a separate person looking, while page views could be the same people looking several times…heck some of those are probably me!
If you’re logged in, WordPress won’t count your views, so don’t worry about that. I go by page views because even if there are fewer visitors, if they’re looking at multiple pages on my blog, I still consider it a win!
Reblogged this on Ben Y. Faroe and commented:
As usual, I love the way bookshelfbattle thinks. This post is well worth reading if you’re interested in goal-setting, finding readers, or developing a writing practice. Before I send you on, a few thoughts and responses:
1. I love that this is concrete, actionable, and attainable. You can’t decide whether someone follows you, but you can decide whether you’re going to post; make your goals in terms of things you can do.
2. Quantity and consistency are worthy goals. It seems there’s some debate about whether it’s worth pushing for quantity instead of quality. My stance is that if quality is your goal, quantity is a great path to it.
3. I like that bookshelfbattle isn’t shy about trying to get readers. That’s the whole point. We (writers) want readers. And readers want good stuff to read. If you don’t think your stuff is worth reading, write better stuff before you go public. If, however, you think your writing is worthwhile, why would you not want to give it to as many people as will benefit from it? Applying strategy and focus does not make this evil, it makes it effective.
4. I’m joining in, but more cautiously. (Caution(tm)! Putting the boring back into success!)
I’m planning to post every weekday, holidays optional, through the first quarter of 2015. I’m still figuring out where blogging fits into my overall career strategy as a writer, but I’m enjoying it so far and I think three months will make a good baseline. Also I really appreciated bookshelfbattle’s willingness to share stats, so for the record, after about 2 1/2 weeks of posting consistently, I currently average something like 10 visitors a day, with about 40 people following. End of March will be (let’s see…math math math) 42 more days of posting, so by then I’d like to see at least 100 following, with 25-30+ visitors a day.
Really what I’d like to see is more people reading my stories, so in addition to posting I’ll probably be experimenting with new ways to make those more visible and fun.
Anyway, enough from me. Enjoy. And if you have any thoughts on what you’d most like to read about here, I’d love to hear it, so leave me a comment and let me know.
Cheers!
–Ben
Good luck on your own self-challenge and thanks for the reblog!
When in doubt, if you can’t think of anything else to write, discuss your favorite breakfast foods.
Ha! Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. And good luck to you as well. Looking forward to watching it unfold.
[…] usual, I love the way bookshelfbattle thinks. This post is well worth reading if you’re interested in goal-setting, finding readers, or developing […]
This does sound like a good idea.
As a self published author I know how hard it is get your book out there and I am still trying to figure out the marketing side of writing…. I’m a writer not a marketer. I didn’t realize going into it I needed to be both.
I’ve got a couple poetry books published so far and am waiting on the cover for my first novel. Blogs like this are great to see for people like me because they give me a venue to get ideas, networking, and maybe even drop a line about my books. 😉
Forgot to check “Notify me of new comments” so ignore this part. 😛
I have recently started to get really interested in self-publishing, but I’m putting the cart before the horse – have to write a book before it can be published. Still, the technology and what can be done with self-publishing fascinates me.
So have you enjoyed your self publishing experience so far?
Respect to you for doing this…I couldn’t write a short post if I tried (you’ve probably noticed) and trying one per day would probably give me an aneurysm. On that note, I reckon you’ll achieve the goal but I’m wondering how you’ll get past the day you get sick, as in the kind of sick where you’re bedridden and narcoleptic and running the kind of temperature the Sahara Dessert would be jealous of and thinking ‘Must…get…to….wordpress!’ and then your body knocks you out when you try. I read your random questions post tonight as well, so here’s a question: could you get past a day like that and still post?
This comment deserves its own post.
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