Wednesday, November 23rd
Nov. 23rd, 2011 06:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinTHE DAILY REPORT
Fantasy In Miniature
The Fantasy In Miniature Tumblr has been gaining followers at a rate of about 1.5 per day since I started it, which is just awesome. Actually, that average oversimplifies things a bit. I gained a good number of those followers in the past week, because the thing about Tumblr is that it works a bit like a snowball rolling down a hill. Each person reading is another person who might reblog, putting it in front of their followers. That's why I started putting my flash fiction up on it in the first place. I've been very fortunate to havekarnythia as a booster for them from early on in the month... her reblogs have really helped get the ball rolling.
Another part of the nature of Tumblr is that different things catch on with different people, which is what makes it a great fit for FIM, since FIM is many different things. When I post stories on the dedicated FIM blog, if somebody likes just one of the stories on the front page but the rest don't resonate with them, that's probably it. Not only might I never have them as a reader, I'm also unlikely to get any word-of-mouse out of them. With Tumblr, that one story that they like is going to get a reblog. Their followers will see it.
None of my FIM posts over there have exactly caught fire yet. The most popular stories are getting some two dozen notes... that's a waaaay smaller response than some of the essays I've penned under my personal Tumblr blog. But it's a bigger visible response than I get for anything on the main FIM site, and that's great. On a practical level my work is circulating among new audiences and on an emotional level I'm getting more direct positive feedback. It is all good.
Less good: I've been burning through my backlog of flash stories without generating many new ones. I knew this might happen with the Maryland trip, which was why I wanted to have a month's backlog before I started posting. Not a disaster. My goal for now is to just keep a backlog, period, and then I'll work on building it back up.
Tales of MU
A month of scraping by on the skin of my teeth as far as deadlines go has me convinced that my schedule is not only workable but has room to grow. I'm not in any hurry to do that... I want to kick things up a few notches in quality before I revisit quantity. Rather than actually increasing the schedule, I'd probably introduce the concept of "bonus days"... which would be in-between days that I post something extra sometimes when I have it. I'm also thinking it would be best to try writing to the higher capacity for a while before publishing at it.
It's been a while since I did a market research survey, and I think there's going to be one in December. Among the things I'm interested in are how people feel about the balance of main story to OT. I get a lot of comments from people who prefer the OTs to the main story, but it seems like assuming the majority of the people who check the site regularly aren't there for the main story would be a little risky. The people who like the status quo will have the least to say about it. Another thing is how many people are reading the story via feed readers, now that this is an option.
On a related subject, I've put the StatCounter hit trackers back on the site. I just made a blog post about it on the MU blog to let readers who don't follow this blog know. I have separate counters for the regular and mobile site.
STATE OF THE ME
Still waking up early, but getting enough good sleep/rest that it's not so much of an issue.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
Too nebulous to recall.
PLANS FOR TODAY
Major writing day of the current cycle. I've got an afternoon engagement with my family, so that's going to be it.
Fantasy In Miniature
The Fantasy In Miniature Tumblr has been gaining followers at a rate of about 1.5 per day since I started it, which is just awesome. Actually, that average oversimplifies things a bit. I gained a good number of those followers in the past week, because the thing about Tumblr is that it works a bit like a snowball rolling down a hill. Each person reading is another person who might reblog, putting it in front of their followers. That's why I started putting my flash fiction up on it in the first place. I've been very fortunate to have
karnythia as a booster for them from early on in the month... her reblogs have really helped get the ball rolling.Another part of the nature of Tumblr is that different things catch on with different people, which is what makes it a great fit for FIM, since FIM is many different things. When I post stories on the dedicated FIM blog, if somebody likes just one of the stories on the front page but the rest don't resonate with them, that's probably it. Not only might I never have them as a reader, I'm also unlikely to get any word-of-mouse out of them. With Tumblr, that one story that they like is going to get a reblog. Their followers will see it.
None of my FIM posts over there have exactly caught fire yet. The most popular stories are getting some two dozen notes... that's a waaaay smaller response than some of the essays I've penned under my personal Tumblr blog. But it's a bigger visible response than I get for anything on the main FIM site, and that's great. On a practical level my work is circulating among new audiences and on an emotional level I'm getting more direct positive feedback. It is all good.
Less good: I've been burning through my backlog of flash stories without generating many new ones. I knew this might happen with the Maryland trip, which was why I wanted to have a month's backlog before I started posting. Not a disaster. My goal for now is to just keep a backlog, period, and then I'll work on building it back up.
Tales of MU
A month of scraping by on the skin of my teeth as far as deadlines go has me convinced that my schedule is not only workable but has room to grow. I'm not in any hurry to do that... I want to kick things up a few notches in quality before I revisit quantity. Rather than actually increasing the schedule, I'd probably introduce the concept of "bonus days"... which would be in-between days that I post something extra sometimes when I have it. I'm also thinking it would be best to try writing to the higher capacity for a while before publishing at it.
It's been a while since I did a market research survey, and I think there's going to be one in December. Among the things I'm interested in are how people feel about the balance of main story to OT. I get a lot of comments from people who prefer the OTs to the main story, but it seems like assuming the majority of the people who check the site regularly aren't there for the main story would be a little risky. The people who like the status quo will have the least to say about it. Another thing is how many people are reading the story via feed readers, now that this is an option.
On a related subject, I've put the StatCounter hit trackers back on the site. I just made a blog post about it on the MU blog to let readers who don't follow this blog know. I have separate counters for the regular and mobile site.
STATE OF THE ME
Still waking up early, but getting enough good sleep/rest that it's not so much of an issue.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
Too nebulous to recall.
PLANS FOR TODAY
Major writing day of the current cycle. I've got an afternoon engagement with my family, so that's going to be it.