One Year of Blogging

On December 28, 2012, I made my first post to this blog. Looking back, over the year, how did I do? Was it worth it, and is it still?

Content

Well, start with my own content. Including this one and one in draft form, I’ll have made 250 posts, or about two posts every three days. That’s not bad, and frankly my goal was about four posts every seven days (1.75 days per post), and I hit about 1.5 days between posts, so I overachieved.

For a while, I had a really good thing going. Two Actual Play reports, an Apropos of Nothing segue into entertainment, usually movies but sometimes other gaming inspiration, and two or three gaming content posts, with a GURPS-related post every week on Thursday, and other gaming-related stuff for the others.

As for content, well, I will admit that I’m fairly happy with the GURPS-related stuff I’ve put down here. The Melee Academy, GURPS 101, and Grappling Mat “features” are fun to write, and I’ve got some nice collaboration going on.

The interviews were a fun but late add to my repertoire. I’m still shooting for one per month, and I’ll gladly take suggestions. Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day have both been suggested, and sure, why not! I’d love to interview some of the Big Dogs at Paizo, Ken Hite and I are still trading emails. I’d love to talk with some fiction authors who also game, too, for a different take on things.

Response


Overall, it’s been great. Blogger puts me at just over 125,000 pageviews for the year (about 2,400 per week). Google Analytics, of course, puts me at just shy of 70,000 in roughly the same time period (1,350 per week). The truth is probably in between, which probably means about 250 readers per day, although Analytics also tells me that over 14,000 “unique visitors” have dropped by, which is way cool.

More fun for me are the almost 1,400 comments those posts have generated, which if you exclude my own, probably means an average of 3 comments per post. That’s not bad at all, though of course I’d love more!

I know I’ve been added to some really cool blog rosters, and struck up some fun conversations/internet friendships with people I’d never have otherwise met.

The Future


Well, more.

I’d like to get back to that schedule of one game per week for the writeups and “actual play” experience that brings. I’d also like to GM a game or two of my own, which I hope to sketch out real soon now.

I definitely want to do at least six interviews in 2014, ideally more in the nine to 12 range, though some donations to the transcript fund would help me make it twelve rather than six more easily.

As for content, as long as I’m playing and writing, I’ll still have stuff to talk about. I’m branching out into other games, such as +Erik Tenkar‘s S&W game. When the Daylight Saving’s Time turns again on March 9, my evening conference call should flip back to morning, which will hopefully allow me to jump back into +Nathan Joy‘s Jade Regent/Dungeon Fantasy campaign. I definitely want to start up my own game, probably with guns in it, to give those rules (and some house rules) a workout.

I suspect that much of my writing for at least the first quarter will be Pyramid. I’ve got something like four articles in the writing process now. Two with +Peter V. Dell’Orto, one on my own that’s in Development Hell, and one more that will hopefully be part of something pretty cool.

There are two e23 projects I want to write as well, but one will be very research intensive, and I don’t know if I’ll have the time.

Parting Shot

Thanks to all those who read (and share!) this blog with me. I’m certain had I not gotten such good feedback from everyone, I’d have just stopped doing it.

I love hearing from people, and even criticism is quite useful, as are suggestions of what to look at next. I’m always itching for more topics!