Monday, July 25, 2016

A Milestone:100,000 Total Views

It took nearly six years to reach it (I began the BryonySeries blog on Aug, 1, 2010), but while I was sleeping (or trying to sleep, curses, insomnia!), the blog hit 100,000 views; I signed on to see 100,005 to be exact.

I took a picture and texted it to Sarah as she really should know it first. Why is this?

While I was still in the editing phase of Bryony in early 2009 and researching publishing options, I kept encountering this piece of advice: authors should have blogs.

So when Sarah was setting up the Facebook page, originally to collect recipe submissions for what would eventually be called Memories in the Kitchen: Bites and Nibbles From Bryony, and then later the website and the Twitter account (which was never morked much, more on this in a future post), I shared the blog advice and asked her to research those options, too.

Sarah reached out on Facebook to her blogging friends and narrowed her choices to Blogger and one other. She liked Blogger because of its connection to Google and proceeded to set up the page. She also researched topics like "keywords" and "search engine optimization," concepts that proved useful today as a newspaper editor (Who knew at the time?).

But what to write? Sarah, again, was full of suggestions: Write about progress with the book, its publication, and any events and themes connected to it. Write about yourself. I balked at this last, but Sarah felt readers would like a glimpse into the author behind the words.

Afraid I would run out of ideas to write, I prewrote the first month's post. This was a wise choice. The surgery I was scheduled to have in mid-June was postponed to late July, and Sarah actually posted the first couple weeks of those prewritten blogs. When I was hospitalized a couple months later, she even ghostwrote some of them.

BTW, Sarah hates to write.

And in those early months, Sarah did all the tagging, too, Talk about someone who believed in the story!

In those six years, Sarah has taken the skills she learned helping me (the ones mentioned here and others she acquired), merged them with the ones she already had, and landed a job she loved with terrific insurance where she is now a supervisor. This means that she is, quite rightfully, not as available to help as much, although she is still a terrific resource.

Together Sarah and I cheered the milestones. The first several views. The first view in two digits. The first twenty views. The time we hit fifty views total and in one day. The time we hit one hundred total views and a hundred in one day. The day we hit 50,000 total views.

To some, 100,000 total views in six years may not seem like much. But we have watched this blog grow from three views a day to several hundred views a day. Except for scattered days when I was so busy breaking down my home and facing homelessness while trying to work as an independent contractor, I posted each and every day.

We did it from an idea I had for a story that's expanded into a series. We did it without a platform; instead, we are growing one.

But also in those six years, I have seen other writers' blogs come and go. I can only assume they served their purposes and came to natural ends. For me, I feel as if we are just beginning.

To my handful of loyal readers who have followed this blog since its inception: Thank you. Your support and encouragment has kept my motivation going.

To the readers that have found this blog along the way: Thank you for sharing the journey. I'm cheered you've found something to interest you.

To my newest readers: There's a lot of posts here in about every topic imaginable related to the series (or to me), and no shortage of typos. Pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, browse, enjoy.

(Raising my coffee mug): Here's to the next 100,000!

2 comments:

Crissouli said...

Congratulations, that truly is a milestone!

Denise M. Baran-Unland said...

Thank you so very much. <3