A2Z Postmortem

Facing two self-inflicted challenges for April, I came up doughnuts. Truth is, the real challenge was to test if I was ready to handle a normal forty-hour work week. In short, for seven month’s I’ve been off work to recover from a long-term illness in which the recovery can drain substantial energy. At the end of March, I was feeling much stronger so I wanted to test my readiness for regular work.

I gave the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge a shot, posting fiction as blogged by Nine Thyme at Kandy Fangs. I didn’t complete the challenge, but I learned good things.

Quality counts

Reading many different blogs this month has reinforced the importance of quality over quantity. Some blogs were too obvious in writing ahead of time, some posts too generic, and many poorly written. I wasn’t happy with the quality of several of my posts. Quality tends to drop with increasing quantity. I believe I would have followed more blogs if I had come across them in other months.

Unless you are a full-time blogger, forget daily posting. Put your best work out there.

Tips for bloggers (looking at you, Blogger users)

Make it easy to follow your blog. Provide a button, even a simple RSS link. If you use G+ or Twitter, supply a link. I find email follow clumsy, but I added an email subscribe to my blogs anyway.
Turn off that CAPTCHA! It doesn’t protect you from all spam since some bots beat CAPTCHA better than humans. Annoying your visitors is rarely a good idea. Simple moderation and running comments through spam service is more than enough.
Please think carefully before posting a writing tip. Are you showing us a new perspective that isn’t already covered? There are too many blogs (and books) on writing. Consider how you can stand out. My observation could very well be swayed by A-to-Z, but consider my previous point on quality.
Read more.

Fiction bloggers: read more fiction

Fiction struggles on blogs, and I primarily write fiction, which could explain my low comment-back counts from other A-to-Z participants. I found a handful of blogs on the A-to-Z list writing fiction, and I enjoyed reading them. However, very few of the A-to-Z fiction writers reciprocated my comments. So, I felt less incentive to return. I find the same on TuesdaySerial and webfictionguide.com; far more writing than reading. Perhaps if fiction bloggers did more reading, fiction blogging might become more popular. Just a thought.

A-to-Z is not for me

By letter, P, I had become completely exhausted, not surprising given how hard I had been pushing. Counting all my blogs, I had already surpassed 26 posts for the month on the 19th. I also felt a little down about the low participation from the A-to-Z crowd. Comment-backs to my blogs were very low, but the FridayFlash crew spoiled me five years ago. The majority of comments on my posts were from previous visitors and FridayFlash participants.

I enjoyed reading many blogs, but I could have done the same without participating while focusing on writing better, less frequent posts.

My April stats for fun and observation

Post count (total / A-to-Z): 29 / 19
Most popular posts: Guest Post: Icy Sedgwick and Vampires on the Mind – Old Thyme #3
Mosts visitors arrived via search engines followed by Twitter
Number of visitor comments: 105 (average 3.6 per post)
Post with most visitor comments (12): Vampires on the Mind

No surprise seeing Icy at the top spot. I ended up with more than 26 post due to continuing my regular posts outside of A-to-Z. These stats don’t include the final 2 days of April.

The chart below shows what visitors are interested in. See that “How-to Create a 3D photo” post? I wrote that 5 years ago. It, along with several others, see visitors every month. Readers want to learn something or solve a problem.

 

I need to post more about the problems I have solved.

The next chart shows where my visitors come from excluding direct and RSS. Search and Twitter top the chart followed by Google+ and FridayFlash.

Goodbye, A-to-Z, it was… interesting

I will never participate in A-to-Z again. Timely, thoughtful posts make more sense. I try out new blogs throughout the year without an excuse like A-to-Z, and I’d rather read your regular posts. At least, it was an interesting experience.

I would also like to read your fiction. Give FridayFlash a try and meet other supportive fiction writers.