Notice Me: Phase 2

Last week I moved on to another area of my writing career--Medium. This is still a relatively new addition to my portfolio, so I wasn't expected a lot to change with this situation. I didn't write any new pieces to promote, so I selected a few previously published works to promote online. I did manage to get more eyes on my articles, poems, and stories. I promoted four pieces and received six views--and sadly, that's a significant increase from me doing absolutely no promotion. Out of those six views, I only received four reads (and I think it goes without saying, no earnings from the partner program). What's the difference and how does Medium distinguish the two? I don't know. A read could be time spent on the page. A read could mean scrolling all the way to the bottom of the article. It's not clear to me how they determine whether a piece has been read or not.

Another key piece of data that I don't have access to was insights into the type of person looking at my work. On my article details pages, there is a place for these insights, but Medium has declared that my readers' interests can't be determined until I get more views. I do get traffic sources of clicks, but without getting more insight into the readers that browse my work for free, how can I start to create a picture of those who pay for a subscription and would be interested in my work?

I also know because none of my pieces have been published into or curated for a Medium publication, it doesn't get a lot of views without taking the time to promote it. It doesn't end up in the daily emails Medium sends out, and the stats page has informed me on every piece that:

"Our curators were not able to review this story for distribution in topics due to high volume."

Which I interpret to mean "Get a truckload of reviews, then we'll take a look." Not really beneficial when I haven't cracked 35 views a month yet. But this doesn't phase me. I'm going to keep my work here, add more work, and try to craft the right pieces I can submit to the publications I've technically already signed up for, but have yet to submit. 

Now I'm off to the last task of the month--getting new patrons on Patreon. This will be the biggest challenge out of the three, but I'll figure it out.

Still on the NaNo Road

It's never a good thing when you can say that you are thousands of words behind in your writing. Especially during November. But don't worry. Even though the goal is to hit 15,000 words tomorrow and I'm stuck hovering around 7000, I'll be able to get back on track. After all, Thursday night is one of my TV-free nights--not because I force myself not to watch it. There's just nothing good on. And what better way to use that time than to write, write, write. Or agonize for two hours about how I still don't have a title. Which ever one of those options strikes my fancy.

Between freelancing work (still have plenty of spots available for my Fiverr gigs), NaNo, and revising Melody's Valentine, I've probably neglected doing all of the promotional work I should be doing. Let's get that back on track: remember, all of my books are available through Amazon and most of the major book/ebook retailers worldwide. You can check out the full list of titles to see what you may be interested in. Might I suggest my Melody of Love Kindle Worlds series books #1 and #2 so you can be ready to read #3 in January? And please, if you read it and like it, don't forget to review it!

If you are looking for a little more, you can still sign up to get exclusive content at Patreon. This week I'm releasing the cover for Melody's Valentine, and next week you can get the first look at an excerpt from Pieces, my poetry collection that's debuting on Wattpad in 2018.

Changing My (Non)/Writing Habits

I took a look at my work habits this week. Turns out I started spending a lot more time trying to find ways to get hits on my articles rather than just continuing to produce quality work. That's not good. I've read all of the advice and tried to follow most of it, but promotion is not my strongest quality. Although somehow I did manage to get my page rank of this blog up to 2, which is amazing considering I have had it since 2003 and this is the first time it crept up above 0.




But I also have to give myself a little credit this week. I managed to create a few more good work habits. I am able to stick to a schedule now, even when those little unexpected things creep up.I am meeting my daily published articles goals, work article goals and I'm still chugging away at the bids for bigger projects. I thought the hardest part would be the 500 words a day, but:

500 Words update: Technically I met my goals yesterday and today, although I wrote 500 words before midnight and 500 words after. This is another habit that doesn't need to continue. I would rather schedule my writing time first thing in the morning instead of up late. The writing gets a little crazy when I get tired.