Starwalker: Into the Second Week
Phew. Another week or two has slipped by, and I am way behind in my blog posting again. But never fear! Here I am!
Starwalker has got off to a rocking start. I keep looking at it and reeling, just a little bit, quietly, to myself. Allow me to explain.
Let’s start with the comments. It wasn’t until after I had started the Apocalypse Blog that I found out comments are a good idea. It was a conceptual decision and I didn’t realise that it was a good way to communicate with my audience (be gentle, it was my first blogfic!). With Starwalker, I was determined not to make that mistake and left the comments on. (Okay, they broke and it took me two days to fix them, but they’re all working now!)
Now, I have comments. More than that: I have good, positive comments. I can’t say how much this means! I was more nervous going into Starwalker than I have starting any other project, and it’s good to know that people are liking it.
I have been getting other feedback, too, and I’m grateful for all of it.
Then there’s the web stats. I check this a few times a week, mostly because the little graphs going up makes me happy. The Apocalypse Blog got off to a slow start, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing and no-one knew who I was. In its first two weeks, it got a grand total of 177 visitors. Starwalker is a week and a half old, and it’s had 247 visitors so far (with a higher return rate, too).
I’ve also had over 100 visitors a day for the last couple of days – something that took me two months to achieve in AB. Whoo-hoo!
Part of this is my existing audience and contacts, going over because I nudged them and they (hopefully) like my work. I also know a little bit more about where to advertise, and that’s helping too. And okay, maybe I teased people about it beforehand enough that they were almost as excited (and more excited, in some cases!) than I was to see the first post go up.
I’ve been busy over the past couple of weeks, trying to get all the links and listings in place. Here’s where I’m at so far:
- Muse’s Success – done and approved (go give me pretty stars!)
- Epiguide – done and approved
- Write Blog Fiction – done and approved (go give me pretty stars!)
- Web Fiction Guide – done and approved (go give me pretty stars!)
- Technorati – done and awaiting approval
- Blog Fiction – done and awaiting confirmation
I’ve also been spreading the word through my Twitter account and Facebook. I set up a Facebook fan page a couple of days ago, and that’s going well so far! I’m using it to send out notifications whenever a new post goes up on Starwalker (and will post when the AB shorts go up, too), so please go hook up there if you want to join in!
Also, it looks like the Web Fiction Guide have changed their submissions procedure (not sure when this changed, but it didn’t happen a year ago!). Now, they are having an editor give the fiction a rating and brief (incomplete) review when they approve the listing. So I have a 4-star (out of 5) editor rating and a really positive semi-review already! (On looking at other recent listings, that’s a high rating, too!)
So. It has been a busy couple of weeks. A lot has happened, and I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten some of it. There are still places I need to advertise (some have minimum post requirements) and other stuff to sort out. I have to go back through my links to AB and make sure I’ve covered them with Starwalker.
Tomorrow’s SW post is already edited and scheduled to go up in the morning. This new project is going well, I think. I’ve even had time to start the first AB short story between SW posts.
Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to get this far with Starwalker (and my other projects!). There is so much more to come and I can’t wait to take you there with me! I think tomorrow’s post sums up how I’m feeling right now. You’ll know when you see it.
wngl says:
I’m a little late catching up, but love what I’ve seen so far!
Do you think any of the pages you list would be interested in a blog of short sci-fi serials? I’m trying to figure out ways to get better exposure for it.
Cheers,
James
http://vaultofstory.blogspot.com
February 14th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Mel says:
Hi James!
Glad you’re enjoying Starwalker.
I think all of those would be fine with the kind of blog you write. I don’t think any of them are specifically for fictional blogs – it’s not a very big genre, so they tend to be for all kinds of web fiction. They all have pretty clear guidelines on their sites if you’re not sure.
I get good click-throughs from all of them, especially Web Fiction Guide and Muse’s Success. I think Write Blog Fiction is newish, but I’m still getting visitors from it. Of all of those, I think Technorati gives me the least traffic.
Hope that helps!
February 15th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Rissa Watkins says:
Enjoying Starwalker but miss AB so much. I might need to join a support group or something. 🙂
Oh and I have given you a Kreativ Blogger Award on my blog: http://rissawrites.wordpress.com/
A very much deserved honor.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:16 am
Mel says:
I am working on an Apocalypse Blog short story! I will try to ease your cravings, just as soon as I get that finished.
Oh my goodness! Award! Thank you so much! Wow. That means a lot to me, especially coming from someone I respect so much. Thanks, Rissa. 🙂
February 27th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Kreativ Blogger Award! : : Adventures in Text says:
[…] other day, I noticed a new comment pop up on my last post on my writing blog here. When I checked it out, I discovered that my friend, reader and fellow writer, Rissa Watkins, […]
March 13th, 2010 at 2:52 pm