Mostly About Stories has been going for just over a year, and it’s time for a little retrospective. I started the blog for a few different reasons. I was about to leave Cambridge and spend a year in Russia, and I would be losing the company of my dear friends Sophie and James, both of whom received the brunt of my reading reviews over dinner each day. I wanted to tell somebody – anyone really – about what I was looking at and what I thought of it. A blog has the advantage of eventually creating a little community around it, with regular commentators and a discursive atmosphere. This has not happened with Mostly About Stories yet, but perhaps it will one day.
Another reason was that I wanted to make sure I was writing. My creativity is fickle, but both from a literary and an academic perspective it makes sense for me to be regularly squeezing thoughts and words out of myself. The weekly/fortnightly deadline I set myself was successful in forcing me to write. It also forces me to think, just a little. Another, closely related, advantage is that of the reading I have done, much of it has been from my reading list for the next academic year, so writing about these books serves as a preliminary solidification in my memory of impressions and the early formulation of critical viewpoints.
It is funny how, as I began to see viewers come in, and then eventually began to see one or two of them stay, I started to be concerned about views. Initially I was writing for myself, on the whole. But once I had a little counter, like a budding little “influencer” I came to consider how to boost my popularity. Luckily, that desire is not too dominant. The fact is, if I wanted views I would need to focus on writing “analyses” and “summaries” of my reading list. In the end, the idea of making a small community of like-minded readers is more attractive, and although having some views are important in that – otherwise how will anyone find the blog at all? – a different style and some small degree of quality is more important.
But anyway.
What Went Right; What Went Wrong
So, as far as I understand it, the blog has not done badly in terms of views. After all, who reads these days? As the year went on, I got more and more of them – except for the final months. when university ended and people presumably had better things to do. Now that we are into January, things are picking up again, and I hope that the trend will continue once we get into February proper.
I had a comment too! My review of Satantango had a comment by the translator. This was very exciting, because I’d liked the book a lot. Nonetheless, that’s one comment over the course of an entire year. I’d prefer to have more. Engagement is great, because it makes you – as the author – feel that people are at least reaching the end of your pieces. I have, as I imagine others do also, an instinctive distrust of Google’s Analytics, which although they are very detailed, paint a somewhat depressing view of how long people actually look at things. Or perhaps it’s just that my content isn’t good. Who knows?
The same situation holds true with my subscribers. Or should I say subscriber? The subscription box, much as is with the case with comments, isn’t easy to locate, and I imagine confirming an email subscription takes a lot of effort – I know I’d hardly do it myself. But still, it would be good to have at least one more subscriber, and ideally someone I didn’t actually know in real life.
A Bit of Data
Mostly About Stories is a book blog. I dropped maths as early as I could, and although I like it, nonetheless it is one of my weaker areas. Still. Here are some statistics for you.
In 2019 I had 4635 views from 3336 unique visitors, 2 comments, and 1 subscriber. By the end of the year, in October and November, I was averaging 35 views a day. On my best day I had 96 views – that day was also my birthday, funnily enough – but as most of the views were on my article about Walter Benjamin this seems a simple coincidence. At the time of writing there are 37 posts on the blog, which is pretty good going. I only once took a break between posts of longer than two weeks (my stated schedule in the about page).
For a book blog this may be good, but probably isn’t. My only real source of data is this page.
Concerning the Writing
Of course, it’s all well and good to look at metrics and think of plans, but really the heart of any blog is its content. Mostly About Stories is dominated, in its views, by my piece on Walter Benjamin’s the Storyteller (see above). Next to that is my translation of Kafka’s Before the Law, and my essay on Gogol’s The Nose. But everything that I’ve written, almost without exception, has had a viewer or two. That makes writing them worthwhile, as it’s often the less well-known things that I’m most excited to share with people.
My favourite pieces on the blog, or at least the ones I feel most proud of, are likely Salvatore Satta’s The Day of Judgement, Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time, and Valentin Rasputin’s Money for Maria. I also quite like my translations of Theodor Storm’s poetry.
I do admit that this blog probably lacks a coherent identity. It’s basically just me reading literature, mostly from my reading lists, and writing about it. I quite like the idea, going forward, of being a bit more disciplined with my post lengths. I read somewhere that viewer attention drops off rapidly once a post goes over 1700 words, and I want to make that my target. Something should be not too long, but also sufficiently in-depth as to be interesting. That would be good.
Steps Forward and Goals for 2020
I recently changed the theme of Mostly About Stories. I think it looks better now. It makes the text easier to read and has a bit more of a modern feel to it.
I’d like to have a few more comments, maybe another subscriber, before this year is over. All that would be good. Perhaps I should be like those annoying YouTubers who end every video begging us to like and subscribe? It’s a difficult balance to get and I tend to hope any readers who want to comment will comment without prompting, but perhaps I should try to be a little more pushy?
Anyway, I hope you found this look at one year of Mostly About Stories to be slightly entertaining. Remember to like, subscribe, and leave a comment about how I can improve the blog going forward! 😊