So I concluded from that data at the time that people would mostly want to be entertained. In fact, it made sense to me that the best way to convince people that my published books would be entertaining to read, would be to show I could accomplish the same on my blog. To that end, I decided for 2013, that I'd post once a week at a minimum, one short story, one humorous article, one writer's article, and one theological article per month. As the year progressed, I pretty much did one article a week up until November. And the planned article subject schedule didn't stick completely save I did successfully post one new and original short story each month.
Problem is, none of the short stories made it into the top ten. The highest ranked one is The Three Little Pigs, or How to Invest Wisely at 13th. Readers spent an average of 5.5 minutes reading it. That probably ranked highest out of my stories due to people searching for investment advice from my comedic retelling of the fairy tale. Probably not what they were looking for, but read it anyway. The next story doesn't make it into the first 25.
Ironically, despite my focus, the articles in the top ten are all non-fiction oriented. A combination of my ebook publishing how-tos, related to my book, How to Make an Ebook: Using Free Software, and the ones on marriage introducing my book, Healing Infidelity: How to Build a Vibrant Marriage After an Affair.
Following is my list of articles in descending order:
- 10. What is Marriage? - Biological Basis Avg. time on page: 4:20; published: 4-19-13.
- 9. What is Marriage? - Biblical Basis Avg. time on page: 3:53; published: 4-26-13.
- 8. What is Marriage? - Myths of Divorce, Adultery, and Infidelity Avg. time on page: 4:44; published: 5-21-13.
- 7. How to Make an Ebook: Step 1 - Creating the Source File Avg. time on page: 5:27; published: 9-6-11.
- 6. Healing Broken Marriages Avg. time on page: 4:38; published: 5-14-13.
- 5. How to Make an Ebook: Step 5 - Creating the EPUB Ebook and Uploading to B&N Avg. time on page: 3:35; published: 10-12-11.
- 4. Building Covers for Create Space Avg. time on page: 6:08; published: 1-19-11.
- 3. Using Open Office for Novel Writing Avg. time on page: 6:20; published: 10-15-08.
- 2. Using Open Office and Calibre for Ebook Creation Avg. time on page: 4:06; published: 6-16-12.
- 1. How to Make an Ebook: Step 6 - Creating the MOBI Ebook and Uploading to Amazon Avg. time on page: 4:28; published: 10-26-11.
#3 for many years, being the oldest in the list, ranked #1. Now #1 is by far ahead, with more than double the page views of #2, 2,826 views during 2013. My quandary is that while I'm great with providing the non-fiction how-to's and thankful for the traffic they generate, I know that traffic is probably not going to be that interested in checking out my fiction. They come to get info they've searched for and are not likely to be in the mindset to buy fiction while they are here unless it is totally an impulse buy.
As I evaluate the direction to take with my blog this coming year, this is an opportunity for my regular followers to throw in their opinions of what they'd like to see. More theologically oriented articles? More how-to's? Continue the free monthly fiction stories or pare them back? Add something I've not been doing?
Another consideration. From feedback I've received, my novel's most rabid fans are in MG and early YA. If I were to target that audience with this blog, what kinds of articles would you expect to see here? Probably not how-to articles.
Thanks for your input, and I look forward to another year of interaction.
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