The main thing that I've learned is that I'm doing well, but I'm not doing well. We'll start with the doing well part.
1. I successfully transferred all my writing that was on HubPages and republished it here on my own nest of blogs. Everything has a home. I've also been able to regain access to all my writing on MyLot and have access to all the titles of writing that appeared on Bubblews. Anything worth saving from there can be rewritten. This was a huge undertaking for me, and I'm pretty pleased with myself.
2. I have been actively writing and publishing new material on a regular basis. Considering my schedule, I give myself a pat on the back for that too. I'm three months ahead on humour stories and a month ahead on book reviews. I'm hoping to get further ahead on my other articles and have something new each week.
3. Steady growth in my view numbers. We'll see if that continues into the fall. Monthly counts:
Where I feel like I'm failing is in promoting my work. I promote on Facebook and Twitter, and I'm barely getting any traction there. I feel like those platforms, as well as Google, are working against me. You can search my blog titles and article titles on Google, and it will not show you my work. As I learn, I'm trying to rectify that, but I'm told I might never get their attention. I'm not upset by that. I know that I will gain more success by just plugging away. I have ideas that will help promote my work, but I can't really get after that until I'm on my winter break.
If you've read this far and you like my work, there are a couple of things you can do to help that won't cost you a dime. My author's blog here is Grand Central Station for my writing. In the right-hand column, there are feeds for all the major pages I write on. Each page has links for the three latest posts on that page, including the ones I didn't promote. Blogger lets you follow me with your email, but who wants their email cluttered with an announcement for everything I write? Personally, I would just bookmark the page here and drop by for a visit every once in a while.
Another thing you can do to help. When you read one of my posts that you really like. Please share it with your friends. At the bottom of this post, you will see a strip of social media icons. Those all allow you to share the article directly. I actually use them myself to promote my articles on Facebook and Twitter. Those two actions could make a big difference for me, and I would appreciate it a great deal. If I figure out how to track it, I would consider offering an incentive for doing so. Something along the lines of a percent-off coupon for my Etsy shop.
