Have a blog? Sure, why not?

As this post goes up, it is literally a week before Christmas. And, since Christmas and New Year's Eve both fall on a Tuesday, this year, I figured I'd give myself a little bonus and take the rest of the year off from the blog posts. Also, with it being the end of the year, I figured it was a good time to go over my blog and how it's worked out for me since I started it.

So, I figured the best place to start, is by the numbers, which (and I have nothing to compare these to, so bear with me. :-P ), I think aren't too bad, all things considered.

To start with, this post here marks my 80th post. I think that in itself bodes well considering I've already seen other people start blogs only to have them die months later. As I write this, of those 80 posts, I have a total of 8,028 views. That's over 100 views per post if I spread them out evenly. 

Of course though, the views don't go evenly, which is why I've sorted through my posts and made a label, which you can click on the right side of my page, called Top Posts. Everything under that label has picked up at least 100 views. But the grand prize winner of this past year is my post on Two-sentence Horror Stories, which is currently just shy of 300 views and is a prime example of hitting the right note at the right moment, as it was posted during the Halloween season.

Other labels you'll see are Cryptids, where I tried to do a post a day for an entire month and fell a bit short, Rants, Writings, and Reviews. Surprisingly, a lot of my Cryptid posts, are also around the 100 view mark, but I figured that, for now, I would limit myself to one label per post. I mean, it's not like they're hard to find. 

Ah, the majestic winged Jackalope. One of the cryptids I didn't go over.

My posts ranged from personal rants about things which just irked the hell out of me, to tips on how to format your work to self-publish on Kindle, to samples of works in progress. 

Now, all that is well and good, and to go from 0 to over 8000 views in a year is nothing to sneeze at as far as I know, but what does this all mean? Honestly, I don't have any numbers or anecdotes that show that my blog has led to book sales or anything of the like. Really though, I'm not all that concerned about it either. What I can tell you is that my blog is helping to get my name out there. I know that much because when I check the stats on my page here, I can see that people are coming to my blog by searching for or typing in the address specifically, and that is a very good feeling. 

So, I suppose the most pressing question is "What's next?". Well, more of the same is the obvious answer, but there is a lot more than that to try out as well. 

As late as it is, I'm still trying to power through the work I started for NaNoWriMo, and as I finish the first draft and go through the process of editing and everything, I'm going to continue my Building a Book series, up until the work is either self-published or accepted by a press. 

I plan on continuing to keep my blog readers up to date on my latest works, as well as occasionally putting up roughs as samples.

I plan on continuing discussing the writing process, hitting on topics like Writer's Block, and Twisted Scenes.

More reviews of horror/sci-fi books and movies will be in the future. I may even start accepting review requests at some point. (AT SOME POINT! Don't start rushing to make inquiries or anything, lol. I'll put it in a post and make some noise for it when I'm ready.) 

I may even fill out the Cryptids section or attempt some other silly blog challenge. It's really hard to say exactly what the future holds. 

One thing I do know the future holds, is a sale on my book Class 5. I'll be trying out Kindle's new countdown deal after Christmas. What the countdown deal is, is when you start with a discount, and instead of the sale just ending, the discount steps back up to the original price a little at a time. I'll explain how this is going to work with my book. 

At 8:00 AM on December 25th, the price of Class 5 will drop down to $0.99 and will remain at that price for 48 hours. At 8:00 AM on December 27th, the price will rise to $1.99 for 48 hours. On December 29th it will go up to $2.99 and at the end of the last 48 hour period, at 8:00 AM on December 31st, the price will return to its starting $3.99. Now, remember, this is only for Kindle, as that is the only place the ebook version is currently available. So if you get a kindle for Christmas, or know someone who is getting one, remember my book will be on sale. 

I may still work another blog post in before the end of the year if the mood really strikes me, but I'm not planning on it, so with that, I will wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday season and a Happy New Year! Check back with me on the 7th for a guaranteed new post. :-) 

~ Shaun