Let’s talk about blogging

I admit to not being the best blog friend lately. In my defense, I've been kind of busy. One of the things I did was to create a list in WordPress. I follow over a thousand blogs, but those who interact went in that list. When I'm pressed for time, I limit myself to that list.

Blogging seems to have slowed down from my point of view. I've been at this since the Fall of 2013, and I suppose that makes me an old timer. People come and go, and I've gotten used to that. I had many friends who simply disappeared for various reasons. It seemed like new bloggers came along, but lately that isn't the case.

Maybe I should clarify a bit. New ones are out there, but they seem to be different. This is reflected in the stats: My views are up, but my likes and comments are down. I miss the interaction.

I've discovered a few new blogs over the past year. I tried courting them, but I get nothing back in return. Maybe you know this game. You comment on an interesting post or two. Maybe you get a “thanks,” or a comment like. They never visit my blog.

This doesn't make the person's blog any less interesting, but interaction is important to me. If I get interaction, I'm likely to keep up and leave comments. If it's a one way street, I don't have time for that.

I find it odd that the likes have gone down on my blog, but the views are way up. I had a couple of posts this year that did phenomenally well, but they never made it onto my top ten posts.

For the top ten, I use a WordPress widget. I had it set to track likes as the criteria. The post about Spying With Lana had thousands of views, but didn't get the 45 likes to make my top ten. This is odd, because the percentage of likes to views has changed.

My post about writing a short story went crazy thanks to Flipboard. Again, thousands of views. Never gained enough likes to make the list. There were more commenters than likes.

Recently, I changed the widget to track views instead. This screwed everything up to be honest. The post about my PSA and prostate warning should still be in the top ten. My “about me” page should too. Spying With Lana should show up too, but doesn't. This setting seems to only track the last week of posts for some reason. It said it takes about two days to fully adjust, so I'll monitor the situation.

I still get a few people who like every post, but never comment. I always assume they like it from the WordPress Reader, but don't actually read the posts. I know everyone gets a few of these, and don't give it a second thought.

The fact is that I've noticed a change in blogging. This is data, and it probably means something. What can I do with the data to move my writing career ahead?

I love blogging, and the friends I've made here. I have no intention of giving it up. My readers come for various reasons, but I have a small loyal crowd.

Is it time for me to look for an additional platform? It isn't just the followers and friends. This is an author site, and I want to build interest in my books. Is there something extra I should be doing?

I've had private conversations with some fellow authors, and the consensus is that fewer bloggers are willing to help these days. This is a limited group, but it concerns me. Authors need hosts for cover reveals, promotions, excerpts, and more. I've always helped, and intend to keep helping, but again… This is data, and it means something, even if I don't know what.

When I asked for beta readers for The Playground, I had two people take me up on it. This is in stark contrast to The Experimental Notebook where I started turning people away after seven volunteers.

I will always need beta readers, but if I have to start paying for them, I might stop publishing altogether. My writing journey has never been about the money, but I need to break even. I still get the journey of self improvement without the worry of promotion.

I admit these are limited observations. Maybe a bigger view would produce different data. So I have a few questions for you as bloggers and as authors.

My views are exponentially higher than 2015. This is great! My likes and comments are down, and that's odd. What does this mean? Are people just stopping by to collect new Lisa Burton art? They're welcome to it, of course, (I use them for iPad and iPhone backgrounds too) but a comment or two goes a long way.

Could it be that I'm reaching more people beyond WordPress, and it isn't simple for them to like or comment? If so, that's great. I've run into that problem myself, and understand.

Are fellow authors having a harder time getting help with promotions, hosts, and pushes?

Have I missed the newest form of social media somewhere, and need to jump on the bandwagon?

Do you prefer interaction, or would you rather have people read and move on?

Has anyone else courted an interesting blogger, but the relationship never happened? Maybe I'm strange that way.

In any case, I'm on vacation for a few days, and hope to get some writing done. Today was all about errands, and those are out of the way. I'll probably post a little more frequently this weekend, and I'll try to catch up on some blog reading. I promise to like the posts I read.

What the heck?

Yesterday I posted a short story tip I thought people might enjoy. I kind of expected the usual suspects would give me about 60 views, maybe a reblog from someone who likes writing tips.

When I woke up this morning, that kind of looked like the case. A good post by my usual standards, some nice comments. Then I checked my stats. This post had over 450 views.

I thought one of the heavy hitters might have reblogged my post, but that wasn't the case. There are no reblogs.

I dug deeper, and my new visitors all came from Flipboard. This is the outfit that absorbed Zite magazine who I really loved. I have it set up to gather topics of interest for me. One of the things I can do is set up my own magazine, so I did that a few months ago and called it Entertaining Stories. Unless I'm just whining, I throw a link to my posts in there and don't pay a ton of attention to it. I've also thrown out posts by friends when they have a new release, or something particularly interesting.

I've shared all of the Lisa Burton Radio posts there in an attempt to drive my guests some traffic. Same thing for blog tour guests.

To be real honest with you, I thought it might be Facebook, or even StumbleUpon. I never expected this kind of traffic from Flipboard.

When I went to check it out, I was the top article in two different writing categories. I snapped a photo to share it with you.

Geez, if I'd have thought everyone was coming over I'd have gone with a book cover or something instead of my bronze bust.

The rest of the stats are kind of baffling. Take a look at these:

I'm over 2000 views at the time of this writing, and it's still climbing. Most of those people probably aren't in the WordPress system, because I only have 27 likes. This is my most popular post of all time, but without the likes it won't get into my top 10 in the sidebar.

Don't take this as a complaint. I'm happy to get action anyplace I can. That also means a few people read one of my micro-fiction pieces. There are even a few sales of Notebook to sweeten the deal.

Now if I could only figure out something intelligent to say about my other books, I'd be golden. I have no idea how to duplicate this process, but maybe something will come to me.

You can bet one thing, I'm going to be sharing more posts on Flipboard. This is another reason to have your characters appear on Lisa Burton Radio too, because I'm sharing the posts there.

I'm off to Atlanta in the morning. I'll probably manage a short update from the road, but I expect to be pretty busy.

Promotion takes a step forward.

I read through my morning emails, and sent some ideas off to Sean Harrington. Sean was the cover artist for Wild Concept, and makes the awesome Lisa Burton* art I share here. He is going to make the cover for The Playground.

I stepped away from my iPad and went to find Lisa. I like to bounce ideas off her when it comes to being in public. She’s much more social than I am. I found her nailing up a painting behind her desk.

“What the hell? Where did you? Is that a Warhol?”

Lisa stepped off my old soapbox and turned. “Warhol’s dead.”

“Yeah, well we get ghosts out here sometimes. Remember the one in Will O’ the Wisp?”

“Oh yeah, I had do download French so I could talk to her.” She put the hammer on her desk. “It’s a Harrington. You’ve had us working together quite a bit, and he made this for me.”

“Huh. I um…” I scratched my head while Lisa fetched coffee. She knows me so well.

“What’s on your mind today?” She sat the cup on a coaster made from an old circuit board.

“I think I need to expand my social media footprint. I really don’t like that stuff, and would rather just write. Still, if nobody knows I have books available, it’s hard for folks to read them.”

“So, spit it out.”

“Well, you’re more social than I am. What do you know about Facebook? I think I should probably have a page on Facebook.”

She looked off into the distance. Her eyes fluttered like when the television flickers briefly. “Done!”

“What do you mean, done?”

“You have a Facebook page.”

“You mean, you just made one? Right now?”

“Look.” She pointed at herself. “Robot girl plus great WiFi, equals you have a Facebook page.”

“Show me.”

She sat at her computer and entered the address for Entertaining Stories on Facebook.

“Was it hard to set up?”

“Not for me. You might have spent days at it. I had to set up my own page first before I could set up a business page, so it took me a nano-second. Check it out.” She opened a site for Lisa Burton on Facebook.

“All of it looks pretty good. What do we do with it?”

“You need to make some friends, and they can interact with you.”

“Yeah… Interaction is good, I like that. It’s the making friends part I’m not so good at.”

She rolled her eyes and sat behind the computer. “Go write your stories. I’ll spend some time making you some friends.”

I patted her on the shoulder. “You’re a great wingman. Thanks.” I headed back to my office.

I really don’t know what to do with Facebook, so I’m open to suggestions. It looks like I’ve already gotten a bunch of work done today. Maybe I’ll watch a movie, or make some sourdough. Then I can spend my afternoon seeing if Lisa made me some friends.

*Lisa Burton is my personal assistant, and the spokesmodel for Entertaining Stories. She’s also a robot.

Oh WordPress, what’s next?

I give WordPress credit for improving the comments bar. I still prefer the old idea where I could go to a page of nothing but comments, follows, likes, awards, etc. this new version at least gives me a filter to look at only comments. 

I have a new problem though, plus the return of an old problem. It’s probably an iOS issue, but it exists. If I want to like a comment, the icon registers and immediately unregisters my action. I have no idea whether my idea registered at the other end.

Whenever I respond to a comment, the wheel thingie just keeps spinning. It used to make one cycle and my reply was posted. Now, I have no idea. I have to visit that specific site and check comments to see if it worked. I always respond to comments, even if it’s just to like them. I’m embarrassed to think I might have missed someone.

The reboot issue has returned with a vengeance too. If I read a post, I have to log back in every single time to read the next one. Does WordPress have any idea how frustrating it is to go through 12 hours of posts like this?

WordPress is hell bent on changing things up. They aren’t going to be dissuaded by their users. I believe they owe it to us to make something that actually works. 

If you’ve commented, and I failed to respond in some fashion, I’m sorry. I attempt to respond to everyone. It makes me angry that WordPress is making me look bad. 

Get it together, WordPress. 

A day, in which I don’t like things

If you aren’t into tantrums, here’s your opportunity to skip this post. We will still be friends.

I am not a patient guy, but I try. One of the things I do is give things time before making a judgment. I still have to force myself, but I’m improving.

After much deliberation, and a reasonable amount of time, I don’t like the new and improved WordPress.

I still think it’s the best blogging platform out there, but they’ve certainly made it less user friendly for those who blog. Here are my examples:

• I can’t stand the new and improved stats display. It looks like bad chibi anime to me. I vote every single time I check stats, but apparently it was to placate serious users with no real value behind it. I’ve been clicking to display the old stats page, but now they forced me to swipe through all the new displays to the bottom before I can see any stats that make sense. It has the feeling of a close out sale. “Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
• I am pretty disappointed that I can no longer open a page of my comments, likes, and follows. I am getting a lot of action these days, and the scroll thingie doesn’t work all that well. I would be mortified if I couldn’t acknowledge someone’s comment, and am afraid I might have missed one or two.
• None of the changes work well with iOS. I’m sure there aren’t many Apple fans out there, so why bother. (Rolls eyes.) When I try to respond to a comment, the display actually jerks around, and I wind up hitting the wrong button half the time. The send button isn’t reliable when I do manage to hit it.
• I know it’s old now, but I don’t like the new post “beep beep boop” version either. I always click through to the older one, but wonder how long that will remain. Even it doesn’t like iOS very well. I write most of my posts in Pages these days, and paste them into the new post.
• I want the link option to work every single time. Two thirds of the time, when I highlight a section, the link option greys out. I have to choose a different word to highlight until the link option is available. ( Three or four times, minimum.) Only then can I make the link I originally wanted.
• I want the ability to include a picture when using my iPhone. I usually write these on my iPad, but sometimes it isn’t available. The entire iPhone version is frustrating.

I feel like a hacker whenever I use WordPress these days. Nearly everything is becoming a work around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going anywhere, but I feel like WordPress developers ought to actually use the software on various platforms before they release it to the masses.

I loved BlogPad Pro, but they decided not to update it when iOS 8 came out. It has a bug now that allows me to type faster than it can think. I’m not a fast typist.

Do any of you know of a reliable app that does WordPress better than WordPress?

What’s up With WordPress

I decided to change up from the title of last night’s post. WordPress has always been a little bit buggy. I’m used to the quirks by now. We all see it on occasion; you’ve had three visitors from seven different countries.

This week it’s getting kind of obnoxious. I’m not getting the little orange alerts for comments, likes, and follows. I try to respond to everyone, and I may miss someone. I promise you it isn’t intentional if I miss someone. The conversations are some of the best parts of blogging.

I experimented with this a bit. The error is only on the parts that belong to WordPress. If I go to my own blog, or one of yours, the alerts are there. They’re only missing in Reader, Stats, and places like that.

I’m having the most trouble with default reloads. I follow a ton of blogs. I like to see what the world is up to with my morning coffee. When I log into Reader and open one of your posts, Reader will return me to the very top (most recent) post. It used to take me back where I opened the post I read. This is something like reading a newspaper article, and then being forced to fold it up and place it on the doorstep and start over before being allowed to read the next article.

I can’t put up with this. The world is a bigger place than just Idaho. I have friends in time zones where their morning post happens as I’m going to bed. I have to catch it ten hours later. It’s maddening to have to scroll past a hundred posts to find where I left off, then do it all over again for the next one I want to read.

I’ve seen others who don’t like the new post button and some hokey message it displays. I learned from these posts that WordPress is doing some upgrades. (They don’t feel like upgrades) Here’s to hoping they get it all figured out soon.

In the mean time, if I miss your post, or fail to respond, I’m sorry.

Blogging stuff

I surpassed fifty followers. (Yay 🎉) I heard this is pretty fantastic for such a short time. My next goal is over a hundred. The biggest thing is to be an active participant. I responded to comments, and visited lots of other blogs. I liked a lot of posts, but I was honest about it, and I followed anyone that followed me. I even left a few comments when it was appropriate. The secret is to be an active participant. I get pretty comfortable being a lurker, but that doesn’t win many friends.

I changed my background to something more reflective of December. I’ll give a Marvel No Prize to anyone that figures out what it is. ( Does Marvel still do this?)

I even activated the snow flake thingie in WordPress. I can’t see it on my iPad, so I ran to the Mac and checked it out. It works.

Blogging’s a blast. I did it to promote my eventual publication of some ebooks, but I should have done it a long time ago. It’s fun, without any ulterior motives. I’ve also made some pretty interesting online friends. Everyone should be doing this.

I really should steal a technique from Greg Urbano. He invites people from new countries to follow his blog. That would be cheesy though to borrow from Greg. Still, I would like to see some folks from Greece and Italy show up on my map. My newest novel, The Cock of the South, is a fantasy that covers those two countries.