I've always struggled with deadlines. Procrastination and I go way back. I tried to dump Procrastination but he was like the Navy seaman Jon Something-or-other who had a thing for me in 1979 and kept popping up outside our kitchen window, scaring the bejeezus out of my poor mother, until 1984 when he showed up AWOL and got put in the brig and finally left me alone.
The only way for me to get Procrastination thrown into the brig was to publicly swear a vow to write a post every week. However else I've wasted time these three years, I have kept that promise, and let me just say that it was bloody hard -- often I hit the "publish" button in the wee hours of Friday morning. The only missed deadline was when our son fell off a building in France and we rushed out the door in two hours flat. (Sigh. You can read that post here.)
So, I think a three-year anniversary merits a moment to take stock.
Readership
It took a while for you people to trust me. My oldest friend Pam from nursery school was the first person to subscribe. My mother was the second. She unsubscribed a few weeks lataer, which sent me into a guilty panic because I do enjoy teasing her. But supposedly it was an accident and we got it all straightened out. Those two were my only subscribers for longer than I care to admit.
I now have over 600 of you who subscribe. That means you allow me to email you a weekly newsletter. I can reach you directly without paying Facebook. And fingers crossed, someday you will count as a legitimate audience in the eyes of potential publishers.
Plenty of you readers show up here via Facebook or Google search, and that's just fine. I respect people who are cautious and careful. But remember General George McClellan. Where did cautiousness get him, huh?
By the way, 83% of you are female and 16% male. You are mostly between 45-54 years old or 25-34 years old. You come from all over the world, but primarily from Wisconsin, Illinois, California, and Florida. That's actually a fair amount of electoral votes.
Traffic
By the end of my first year blogging, the blog received twice the traffic of the shop. As of last week, the blog gets quadruple the traffic of the shop. I need to combine the two sites but this will take $$ and a decision on which domain name to keep. My dream is that the new site will combine items from the shop with blog posts in a non-linear format that allows exploration. Remember the J. Peterman and Banana Republic catalogs of the 1970s? Nowadays, it's called "shoppertainment."
When it comes to social media, most of my readers originate on Facebook. Pinterest and Instagram are tied for second. Reddit, those idiots, continue to send me readers even though they banned me. (Read that post here.)
Google sends me people who search the following phrases: bubble joy blog, babble joy blog, adulted joy, Carolyne Roehm divorce, Florence Foster Jenkins syphilis, Amy Sedaris feet, handsome hunk, spunk on her junk, april fools pranks in the middle school classroom, and many others. How flabbergasting. Google, you are supposed to be a blogger's helper.
Round Up of Old Faves
The lead photo on a blog post makes a difference. I swore I wouldn't write about my kids, but their pics do spike traffic. This was a post about taking the leap to open the shop. Click here to read. Photo by Atticus Ballesteros.
I love writing about older women. I hope to do more in the future. This post about Julia Child was very popular, as well as this one about Martha Stewart and this one about Temple Grandin. Photo of Julia Child by Paul Child.
This bittersweet post is the record holder for most views. You love reading about rooms with soul like this one and this one too. Photo by Renn Kuhnen.
WIth this post, you begin to realize I have an unhealthy obsession with dishes. This outdoor tablescape got me featured on the blog, The Enchanted Home, and resulted in many new southern subscribers. Thank you Tina! Photo by Renn Kuhnen.
This post, a stop-action film about the life of a boy told through his possessions, was a flop. But the reporter who interviewed me last month absolutely loved it. You never know when a perceived failure will bring about something positive. Photo by Renn Kuhnen.
This post, one of the most fun to conceive and compose, resulted in some readers writing in my husband's name on their ballots. Photos by Renn Kuhnen.
Well, thanks for joining me on this look backwards. I appreciate your eyeballs on my words and photos. And your comments are like gas in my tank. They keep me going. I'm off to bed now and it's only 11:03!
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