My CKFiction Thanksgiving

This year I dedicated a lot of time and effort into refueling content production for this website.  I wanted to get serious about my writing and work on developing my skills in the craft.  I worked hard coming up with ideas for posts every week, and minus a couple weeks in the middle of the year, I’ve accomplished my goal.

Today I’m going to pull back the curtain just a little bit more.  There’s kind of an unspoken, but understood rule in the media world that authors don’t divulge numbers in regard to book sales, bloggers don’t talk about number of visits, and podcasters don’t speak about their number of subscribers.  Mostly, I think that rule exists because people don’t want to reveal that their audience might not be as big as other audiences, or that they barely have an audience at all.  I know that’s definitely the case for me.  Exposing myself for the fraud that I am is scary, but it doesn’t change my motivations or desire to continue writing.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about the number of readers I have in any way, shape, or form.  I never expected to have more than a few family members support my writing endeavors, and I have been more than pleasantly surprised with the reactions I’ve received from countless people about how they’ve enjoyed my stories.  Oddly enough, the family support I expected to count on never fully came to fruition.  Hmm.  Anyway, back to my point.

Up to this year, my content output was spotty at best, and so were the number of visits to my site.  My best year was 2018 with a paltry 354 views.  (Quick math will tell you that’s not even one view per day!)  This year has been an experiment.  Is my dream of becoming a full time writer realistic and achievable?  It’s still way too early to tell and I have a long, LONG way to go, but my numbers have skyrocketed this year by 294% with a whole month of posts left to publish.  If that’s any indication of the potential possibilities, then that’s really encouraging.  And for that, I’m incredibly thankful.

Now I have to figure out how to keep the ball rolling as far as content goes.  I’ll always have book reviews I can post whenever I finish reading something.  There will be several ongoing features regarding whatever my current project may be, but mostly those will come after I publish.  The really hard part will be keeping the momentum from this year with 52 more weeks of fresh ideas and new articles.

I’d also love to be more successful at engaging my readers.  I did see a significant increase in the number of likes and comments on my page this year (up 1,650% from last year and 825% from my best year!), which seems like a natural by-product of simply being more active with generating content.  I’ve also had a 388% bump in subscribers, all of which is incredible.  So if you’re reading this, let me know what you think!  Leave a comment below, share the post on Facebook, tag me and tell me what you’d like to see more of, rate and like the articles so I know what you enjoy.  Any of those things would make my day, and it also helps raise my profile as an author.  People rely on word of mouth and reviews more than anything, so any little help goes a long way.  Go ahead, give it a shot and let’s see what happens!  With any luck, maybe this writing dream will be realized one day.

Until then, I’m beyond thankful for all the encouragement and support to keep chugging along!

Thank you, that is all.