I Have a Patreon Page: Show Me Your Love (Or Something Less Creepy)
It happened. I said I would do it, and so I have. I’ve created a Patreon page so you’ll all show me how much you really love me, but on a slightly more regular basis. There are “goals” I’d like to achieve — namely, being able to focus more on blogging about the things I love than spending time on things that stress me out. Ultimately, this is about being able to do more of the things I like doing and less of the things I don’t like doing, which comes down to what the folks who read this blog think about everything. In any case, this is just part one of a two-part journey to secretly switch careers while everybody is looking! If you like what I do on this blog, feel free to support my Patreon page. We’ll see how the year progresses 🙂
Blogging, Patreon, Life: Thinking About Things…Publicly!
I originally posted the following on Google+, but I decided to crosspost it here to get input from folks who are subscribed to this blog. Anywhoodles: So, Patreon. In the last week or so, I’ve been giving serious thought to using it, partly because my look back at my blogging work in 2014 made me realize how much attention has been diverted from it and partly because I know why so much of my attention has been diverted away from it: financially, I have to work more just to meet basic needs (which aren’t looking good this year, by the way — thanks to having a job which doesn’t provide dental!). So, last year, I taught more classes to cover expenses (and to make it so I could travel a little bit) and to get some things I really need (honestly, having a car has made a lot of things in my life a lot easier). So the blog got shoved back a bit. I had the podcasting thing. The blog could hold off. The closest thing I had to “funding” this kind of thing was my trip to London for Worldcon. But I actually like blogging. I like talking about sf/f movies and books. When I’m not worried about work or unexpected medical bills, I’m excited to talk about the things that I love. I just wish I could do more of that and less of the stuff that stresses me out. As such, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can correct this. To reduce my teaching load so I can spend more time doing what I find produces less stress. And right now, I’m seriously considering Patreon. Not just for blogging, but for podcasting, too (not The Skiffy and Fanty Show, though; different stuff). Creating content = yes, please. I suppose this is a kind of weird way to probe the folks who follow me on G+ on what they think of the idea. If using that could mean producing more content (on my blog, on my G+ — in blog or podcast form (or both)), would you consider supporting it? Or is this just a really bad idea?
2014 in Review (Stats, Data, Yikes): A Lax Year
I’m a bit late to the party here, but I figured since I set so many goals for myself this year, I should actually talk about what my 2014 looked like in terms of blogging. In brief: 2014 was not a particularly good year for me as a blogger, which isn’t actually a surprise. I’ve been a somewhat lax blogger for the past few years, in part because I’ve diverted so much of my attention to The Skiffy and Fanty Show and to Twitter conversations. There has also been a fair amount of burnout from time to time, particularly when the blogging community started to tank a few years back (it seems to have stabilized now). That said, looking at my statistics, it’s clear where my blog fell off the train in 2014, which gives me insight into how I might improve the blog in 2015. But in case you want the really long-winded version, here you go: The following charts and analyses were based on Google Analytics, which is not a totally accurate measurement, but the best option I have for detailed data (Blogger’s stats are actually better ones to look at, but they allow less fiddling, so I can’t get the depth I need). In 2014, my blog saw a 23.59% decrease in activity by comparison to 2013. In fact, 2013 was such a better year by comparison that even posts I wrote that year were more popular than posts written in 2014 by a 7% margin (more details below). By my own assessment, this has almost everything to do with the following: I spent considerably more time traveling last year than I had in 2013. Last year, I attended four conventions (ICFA, CONvergence, Worldcon/LonCon3, and World Fantasy Con); in 2013, I only attended two (ICFA and Worldcon/LonestarCon). One of last year’s conventions was the result of a fundraiser, which took up a lot of my time, so much so that I put most of my focus on the 2nd item on this list. Podcasting! The Skiffy and Fanty Show had what I hope was a banner year. We rolled out The World SF Tour, explored literature from a bunch of places outside of the U.S. (not as many as I would have liked), and we recorded and released more podcasts than we ever had before. Since most of the podcasting “work” is done by myself, that is a serious time commitment. Speculative Fiction 2014 became a thing. It involved an extraordinary amount of reading — as much, if not more, than the next item. Hugo Award Reading. I spent a good portion of the first few months of 2014 trying to catch up on short fiction so I could actually vote. Part of 2015 will be spent doing the same. Work. I have what I’d describe as three jobs — two that don’t pay very well and one that doesn’t pay at all. These include teaching at the University of Florida as a graduate student, adjuncting at Santa Fe College, and working on my PhD disseration (on Caribbean science fiction, as it turns out). In 2014, I prepped for, took, and passed my exams, which put me in the position of being able to actually write my dissertation. These were time consuming things… Combined, these elements diverted most of my attention away from the blog. This is no more apparent than in the number of blog posts I actually wrote. In 2013, I wrote (or released) 177 posts; in 2014, I released 115 — a 35.03% drop in production. Though my production rate dropped by a third, my general stats fell by less than a quarter, which I blame in part on what I released in 2013. To illustrate, a chart: Last year, posts from 2013 were 7% more popular than posts from 2014. There are a number of reasons this might be so: I responded to more controversies in 2013, including the SFWA Bulletin fiasco and the diversity is a selfie thing. I did not do so as much this year. One of my popular posts was a rant/review of Riddick. It is by far the most popular 2013 post on my blog which can be disentangled from link bots. Other super popular posts include a top 10 list of the best SF/F films since 2010 (at the time, that is) and a post on the vigilante in American Mythology. These posts consistently appeared in the top lists for most visited posts on my blog throughout 2014. I was just more interesting in 2013. It’s true…I had the Retro Nostalgia feature going, which was reasonably popular (one appears in the top 10 list below), and every feature I tried to start in 2014 fell flat due to time constraints, lack of interest (on my part or on my readers’ part), and lack of motivation. In fact, I would wager to guess that the above chart is a reflection of my blog’s “quality” or “interesting-ness” within certain years, with exception to the first two years of its existence, which were demonstrably terrible. Seriously, don’t read anything I wrote in 2006. Please. One thing that becomes apparent when I look at my stats is this: I should talk about movies more often, as that seems to be a consistent “hitter” for my blog, regardless of the quality of the movie. Whether I’m talking about a classic like Legend or a stinker like Riddick, sf/f movies seem to drive more traffic to the blog. Go figure. In terms of what was popular on my blog throughout 2014, I have provided the handy little chart below w/ the full list and links: Movie Review: Riddick (2013) (or, I’m Going to Mega Rant Now) (2013) Top 10 Overused Fantasy Cliches (2009) Top 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies Since 2010 (Thus Far) (2013) Top 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Anime Movies (2013) Top 10 Cats in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2009) Movie Review Rant : Catching Fire (2013) (2014) Adventures in Teaching Literature: David Henry Hwang and
Why I Stopped Paying Attention to Feedburner Subscriber Numbers
Readers of this blog probably haven’t noticed, but the little chicklet/button for Feedburner disappeared from my sidebar about a month ago. The Twitter one, however, has stayed fixed in place (mostly so people can easily find my account; the feeds for my blog are linked above the Twitter gizmo). There’s a good reason, too. One of the things that I have noticed since the disappearance of Google Reader is the unreliability of Feedburner subscriber numbers. They’ve never been terribly reliable, for sure, but the death of GR resulted in a massive drop off in subscriber numbers for my blog, and, it seems, a whole lot of weird fluctuations throughout the blogosphere. For example, in a matter of hours (yesterday), SF Signal’s subscriber numbers went from 19k, then down to 4k, then up to nearly 21k, then down to 15k, and so on. For a site like SF Signal, I suppose those drops are meaningless, since the popularity of the blog can be easily measured via other means (a vibrant comments section and site views). For a blog like mine, where I babble about things I like, there isn’t a whole lot of that kind of activity, so measuring popularity relies on subscriber numbers. But watching the numbers for my blog plummet by hundreds after the death of GR made me rather anxious, and after a time, I became aware that I had put too much attention into how many people read my blog, and not enough attention elsewhere. And since Feedburner, thus far, hasn’t demonstrated the ability to catch numbers from cloud-based RSS readers (like Feedly), I also realized that there isn’t a point even paying attention to the numbers anymore. People read my blog. They are now commenting more (in part, I think, because I took all of the barriers away). Whether I have 400 subscribers, 800, 100, 12, or 47.5, I think there’s something toxic about fixating on subscriber numbers, in part because that means energy I could spend on other things (you know, like blogging interesting things) is spent worrying about where my subscribers went and how I can get them back. I’ve never spent a lot of energy on the numbers, but I’ve come to the conclusion that any time spent thinking about these things is stupid. So I deleted the chicklet. Feedburner is now merely a RSS dispensary for this blog. And that’s what it’s going to be for the time being. There’s no point sitting around worrying about numbers. If people hate my blog, then they hate my blog because I suck. I trust that someone will tell me as much at some point. If they love my blog, they’ll comment or lurk forever (I will hunt down all of you lurkers eventually). But it’s time to move on now. It’s time to just blog about shit I like. It’s time to stop caring about the numbers.
Draft Post Bingo: What should I finish? You Decide!
I’ve been sitting on over 50 draft posts for a while now. Some of these have been around for years, either because I couldn’t complete them (which explains why they are not listed below) or because I forgot about it. So here’s the deal: I’ve listed a whole bunch of these posts below, and you’re going to help me pick the ones that get finished next. All you need to do is a leave a comment with your favorites (you can list the numbers; pick no more than five or six, just to make it reasonably). You’re free to offer your reasons, though it’s not required. Here’s the list: A post about the weird “homo/bi-sexuality as deviance” narrative in The Following A post about the possibility of a Worf TV Show A post about why self-published books frequently get snubbed by mainstream literary awards A post involving a poll for writers (asking them if they played RPGs as a kid, if they still do, etc.). A movie review of Pacific Rim A love letter to Zach Snyder and Christopher Nolan (for Man of Steel) A movie review of _Olympus Has Fallen_ A post about upcoming remakes (Blake’s 7, The Black Hole, etc.) A post about ideological rigidity from a teaching perspective (with a side of SF/F) A post of my hopes for SF/F in 2013 (which I can just update to 2014) A post about why The Empire Strikes Back has gone from my least favorite of the originals to my almost favorite today. A post about note-taking and citation software (a huge monstrosity of a thing…) A post on the top 7 geek-related hobbies/jobs I’d love to do for a living A movie review of The Hunger Games A graphic novel review of The Coldest City A movie review of Cowboys & Aliens A post about whether fiction can be too gritty (dragging up something from a long while ago) A book review of Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist A book review of Dead or Alive by T.M. Hunter A post about five SF/F books that deserve to be considered classics A post about five SF/F books I can’t wait to read…soon… A post about the top 10 SF/F anime movies Have at it!
Top 10 Blog Posts for March (Or, Weirdness You People Like in a 30 Day Span)
And they are: 10. The SF/F and Related Blogs You Read 9. Adventures in…Cancer?: If Only You’d Been Bad Asthma (Or, Leading Up to Diagnosis — Part Two) 8. Hugo Award: What I Nominated 7. Literary Explorations: What the hell is a “strong female character”? 6. Poll: The Retro Nostalgia Film (#7) 5. Death Star Economics and Ethics? (Or, What Would You DO With a Death Star?) 4. Link of the Day: Liz Bourke on (Male) Rape in Epic Fantasy 3. Hugo Awards Finalists (Plus Preliminary Thoughts) 2. Top 10 Overused Fantasy Cliches 1. Top 10 Cats in Science Fiction and Fantasy I’m not sure what to make of this mishmash of old and new. Either certain posts of mind continue to have some kind of lasting impact or aliens have set up some kind of auto-refresher that changes IPs so I can feel special about a blog. The latter makes no sense… April should be equally interesting, methinks.