The Magic of Progress and a 4th of July Sale! · 7:43pm Jun 23rd, 2023
Hey folks! It’s a news update! And unlike last week’s, I actually remembered this one.
Only because I made myself remember it. Because dang I want to be writing Axtara – Magic and Mayhem right now. I missed Axtara’s enthusiasm and personality! And where I left off yesterday was a big moment—sorry, no spoilers—and so I’m just ready to get back to it!
But first, I should confirm that yes indeed, I am still working on it. I’m still in the first quarter, with the various pieces of the plot coming together, but the story is moving along and the primary focuses arriving in play.
Is it going to be released in another month? Hah, no. I’m not even a quarter of the way in, and there will be plenty of editing and polishing to do even after the story is done. That work takes time. And Axtara isn’t going to make a public appearance until her scales are nice and shiny.
I may post a paragraph or two on Patreon that’s really winning, though. Just for fun and to give the supporters some glimpses.
All right, with that said, I’m going to take a brief aside here before talking about the upcoming sale to talk about the impact of my Alaska trip on the site. Specifically, on site stats and rankings.
See, even with articles written in advance, viewership halved in the month I was gone. It’s started to slowly build itself back up, but it’s a slow process.
This isn’t new. Losing half the regulars due to a lack of me just being at the desk happens any time I take a trip that lasts more than a week. In the world of the internet, news that someone will be away for a week or more is, to many, apparently cause to just stop checking up on things.
I will note that it’s even worse if I don’t post anything at all, which is why I schedule stuff in advance. But even then, a 50% traffic hit is a rough hit. It usually takes three or so months to bring that traffic back up to whatever it was before I left.
Why do I mention this? Well, it’s interesting for one. The web behaves in odd ways, and it’s telling how much I have to sacrifice just to have more than a week away. Even taking my usual Christmas break tends to hammer sight metrics. This is just how the web works, with search-engine-optimization and the like. Content content content is the name of the game. Sands, my own site host amusingly advertises potential topics to me each day so that I can be a daily content generator.
Also amusingly, these suggestions are terrible, like “Where was your first kiss?” They’re wholly unrelated to what I do, and I take even further amusement by the host notifying me of how many people did respond with a blog post to that prompt and encouraging me to join in.
Content content content.
Anyway, point is the viewership is back on the upswing again, and it’s still very likely this year’s site metrics will still best last years, given where things were at this same time last year.
But things aren’t quite healed yet, and the numbers haven’t matched up yet with what they were before I left. More work to do, I supposed.
Enough rambling. Hit the jump and let’s talk about this upcoming sale!
