Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Blogiversary!





Happy One Year Blogiversary to Me!


What I have learned in my first year of blogging:
  1. Blogging takes time. I don't just mean the actual time to sit down and write a post, or even the time I spend reading other blogs. Building a readership takes time--months, even. 
  2. Fun events draw people in. I got a huge stats jump last February, thanks to my Romance Title Generator. People who don't read my blog on a regular basis came by every day just to see what the new category was, and to offer suggestions.
  3. You get out of it what you put into it. If you want people to read your blog, you've got to read theirs. It's as simple as that.
And the biggest thing I learned this year?

Shakespeare Sells.

Yep, Madison Avenue is wrong. It's not sex that sells, it's Shakespeare. Last April, I wrote a blog post about how to write like Shakespeare. That post has received far, far more page views than any other. Part of that is because I discussed the authorship controversy, right before Anonymous came out in theaters. That was just dumb luck, frankly.

I am amazed, however, at the number of people who've found my site by searching for variations of "write like Shakespeare."

So what's in store for 2012? Well, the biggest news is that I'll be moving to a Wordpress blog in February, with my own domain name. I've been putting this off for a while, but with some help from my brilliant cousin, it's finally going to happen.

That's the only real plan for the blog. I've got a set of goals for the new year though. Why don't you share yours in the comments?


1) Pay off my credit cards. (Gotta put the boring one first.)
2) Revise and publish my Colonel Fitzwilliam story.
3) Go to NYC for JASNA this October.
4) Go to San Francisco for the Night of Writing Dangerously in November.
5) Write book 3.
6) Plan a trip to England for fall 2013.

ETA @ 12:00: Cause for even more celebration! I just passed 2500 sales! *cue streamers and balloons*