I thought I would share with you the helpful results of the blog survey so you can get an idea of what is coming on the blog in 2017.
Finding 1: How many posts, and when
Bottom Line: Weekly Friday posts with occasional Wednesday posts
There was an almost even split between those who said they’d like to see just one post from me per week and those who said they’d like to see more than that, with a slight majority favoring just one post. There was also an almost even split between those of you who said you’d rather read the posts on the weekends and those who said you’d rather read them during the week, with weekends having a slight majority.
So what does this tell me? It tells me that when I’m designing my content schedule for the blog I need to be sure I have at least one post up on Fridays, since this is during the week but makes the posts fresh and available for weekend readers. However its certainly not going to hurt if I do more than one post in a week, so I will continue to do occasional Wednesday posts as well but will not prioritize them as highly.
Finding 2: What posts to Keep, What posts to Stop
Bottom Line: Monthly (at least) Aaron rambles, monthly “What I’m Reading“, “Canine Writing Lessons” every other month, “Books That Should Be Games” quarterly
All of you said that me rambling about random subjects that pop into my head was something you wanted more of. This was, in fact, the only thing in the entire survey that 100% of you agreed on! A majority of you marked that you’d like to see more “Canine Writing Lessons” and, somewhat to my surprise, more ‘What I’m Reading” posts. A small number of you marked that you’d like to see more “Books That Should Be Games” posts and posts with writing advice.
My takeaway from this is obviously to do more rambling thought posts; your wish is my command. I also plan to start doing a “What I’m Reading” post once a month, probably in the middle of the month. The “Canine Writing Lessons” I’m going to do every other month, unless I get more demand for them.
As for “Books That Should Be Games”, there’s clearly enough interest to keep doing them but not enough to do them very often. I’m planning on once per quarter for these.
Finding 3: New Types of Posts
Bottom Line: Monthly book reviews, monthly updates on my work in progress, flash fiction every other month
I was somewhat surprised when almost all of you marked that you’d like to see book reviews and suggestions, only because so many authors and websites do these and the internet is flooded with reviews. Almost all of you also marked that you want specific updates on my work in progress. Also somewhat to my surprise, a solid majority of you said that you want flash fiction or other short stories to tide you over until the book comes out. A small number of you marked that you’d like interviews with other authors, writing prompts, and/or daily updates on what I’m working on.
In spite of my surprise over the book review response I’m happy to oblige. I’ll start posting at least one review a month. I included my first one in a “What I’m Reading” post here if you’d like to read it. My book reviews tend to be fairly short, two or three paragraphs usually, so hopefully they’ll be enough to satisfy you guys. I’ll release another survey later in the year to collect reactions to these.
I’ll start doing a monthly update on my work in progress and once every other month I’ll do a flash fiction or short story post.
For the daily updates, I figured it would be easier to do this on social media than on the blog with so few of you expressing interest, so I’ll do daily updates on what I’m doing on Twitter with occasional updates throughout the week on Facebook. As for author interviews and writing prompts, these didn’t get enough interest to commit to doing them regularly, but I’ll look for opportunities and throw them in once in a while when I get the chance.
Finding 4: The Additional Suggestions
Bottom Line: Start the Mailing List
One of you took the opportunity in the additional comments question to reiterate your desire for posts on me rambling about random thoughts. Does that mean 110% of you want those? Anyway, message received.
However, another of you took the time to mention that you would really like me to make the blog easier to follow by adding the option to subscribe via email. This is something I’ve been planning on doing for quite a while, but haven’t prioritized. This shows me I need to get on creating the mailing list ASAP, so provided I don’t hit any snags expect it to become available to subscribe to sometime this week.
That’s it! Here’s hoping you guys like this plan. If you didn’t get a chance to do the survey and want to voice an alternate opinion you can still take the survey here. I’m perfectly willing to make adjustments on the basis of new information.
