The life of an indie author is a bit lonely (as the term suggests), so you have to figure out a lot of things yourself.
One of the things that has surprised me the longer I do this, is that you never know what exactly will yield dividends. And by dividends I mean, notice, sales, or web traffic.
I use WordPress as the underpinnings for my website and blog. One of the neat little things WordPress gives you is data on where your site traffic comes from. I was looking at it the other day, and three people visited my website after coming from an interview I did months ago. I’d forgotten about the interview; but for some reason several people clicked from that site through to mine.
When I said several clicks, I meant it literally. Not several hundred or several thousand; just several (as in 6). But, I find it so interesting that you don’t know what will drive people to your site or to buy your book and what won’t. I saw I had a new review on Goodreads, and the reviewer noted she’d bought the book after reading an article mentioning it. So, clearly that article led to a sale.
Sometimes what brings buyers is obvious: you bought an ad, now 100 people have purchased your book. Cause-Effect. But, these smaller, more nebulous, ones are the ones that surprise me, and thrill me the most. So, whenever I wonder if I should really be squeezing in time to do an interview or a guest post, it’s nice to reflect back on these connections, because it’s often surprising which things yield dividends.
Now certainly, I’m not suggesting novelists ignore their core business of writing novels in favor of blogging and guest blogging. But, trying to get out there for a guest post or interview once or twice a month, seems like a good thing.
So, would you like to spill on how you found your way to this blog today? Or, tell me about someone who found you in a surprising way?
Somedays I think I’m more cut out for honing my blogging and editing skills than I am for writing novel, but time will tell. I really enjoy blogging though. One of the stranger search queries that brought someone to my sight was something along the lines of “giant octopus classroom activity.” I’ve posted lesson plans in the past, and the octopus came into play from the interview I did with Troy Aaron Ratliff who uses a picture of an octopus as his avatar.
Ha! I love giant octopus classroom activities. That’s a great query to have in your repertoire. 🙂 Now if only you had a giant octopus activity for the classroom (which hopefully means an activity for the class to do using a giant octopus, and not an activity for a giant octopus to do in the classroom; though I think you could get either meaning based on how I phrased it).