via Google Images
Wow, is it March already? I thought January would never end and then February sort of zipped by without me paying any attention. February was filled with all kinds of wonderful things in my writing world. Madame Gretchen came out, I picked up a new kinky client who lets me write pretty much anything I want as long as I use the topic they want, and I’ve got more writing in the works. Woohoo!
This is the time of the month when I take a look back at my stats – both in the blogging world and in the author world – from the month before. Everything seems to be holding steady. I was sick for a solid week so some stats are lower than they might have been, but it’s a good thing that I can be down for a week and things keep cranking along. And sometimes in the month of March I’m going to hit 1000 posts – and I’ve only been blogging since April/May 2012.
Sex Blogging
- 23 posts
- 11, 456 views
- 21 new subscribers
Top Post of February: A Good Start to the Day (a Masturbation Monday post)
- 5,326 views
- 6 new subscribers
- 56 posts shared by various bloggers
Sex Bloggers Unite Triberr Group
- 17 members
- social reach of 26,462
If you write about sex, are willing to share other people’s posts, and want to grow your readership, click on the link above to join the tribe.
Erotic Book Sales
Paid – this includes The Adventures of Sir and Babygirl, Sir and Babygirl: Bound by Love, and on Amazon only: Madame Gretchen, The Visitor and The Big Game
- Amazon – 44
- iBooks – 1
- Barnes & Noble – 3
- Kobo – 2
Free – the only free titles I have are The Visitor and The Big Game
- Smashwords – 76
- iBooks – 13
- Barnes & Noble – 9
- All Romance – 151
Stacked, an anthology focusing on all things BOOBS released on February 4. You can get your copy here. I don’t have access to the stats so I can’t share them.
Madame Gretchen, probably my favorite book to write (so far) released on February 27. Subscribers received a free copy, but anyone who wants to check it out, can find it on Amazon. You can even borrow it for free on Kindle Unlimited.
On social media things are cranking along nicely, too.
My Author page on Facebook is growing slowly. If you haven’t liked it yet (and want to, lol), I’m also Kayla Lords Author on Facebook.
My Twitter is growing steadily with over 3,800 followers. My Tumblr is too with more than 3,400 followers. On Twitter, I share lots and lots of content (not all mine) and I talk to people – a lot. On Tumblr, though, I share images that speak to me. I can go from puppies to porn in about two seconds (not to mention the Doctor Who stuff, glitter stuff, and whatever else strikes my fancy).
My Two Cents
I talk about my social media numbers from time to time, but for this month’s bit of “wisdom” (it’s okay to roll your eyes. I did.), I’m going to tell you that the numbers don’t matter as much as you think they do.
In one of the author groups I belong to, we had a lively discussion about whether there should be a follower limit on Twitter – we’re a group that retweets each other’s stuff so presumably, follower count might matter. I was one of several to immediately say there should be no limit on how many followers an author should have in order to participate. Numbers are meaningless if your followers don’t engage. You can have 100,000 followers but if they aren’t clicking on your links, sharing your stuff, or talking to you, who cares? This isn’t just a Twitter thing, but goes for all social media.
If you have 200 followers, but those people are loyal to you and genuinely like you, you’ll have more success on social media that someone who’s got 10 times the amount of followers that auto-followed them, paid for followers, or only follow for the follow-back aspect of social media. This goes back to being yourself, as much as time will allow, on social media. You can’t spam people with your ads and not add meaningful content. Sharing other people’s stuff is a good way to start. Replying to people who mention you – in context – is another good way.
How people react to you online is more important than how many people follow you. Once you get up into the thousands (like me and countless others) engagement becomes much more difficult. There are times when I could spend the entire day talking to people on social media – but since no one pays me to do that, that’s impractical. And no one can keep up with thousands of people, but as long as there are people who click, like, and/or share your stuff, you can tell that you’re getting good engagement – and you’re doing something right.
So if you think you’re not doing enough because 100 people follow you on social media and someone else has 10,000 followers, take a look at clicks, retweets, likes, and mentions. That will tell you much more than the numbers ever will. Stay real online and the numbers will follow.
You make a good point about engagement. Numbers don’t tell the story. One is much better off with 100 active followers than 1,000 names on a list. Building a REAL fan base is the key to success–and that can only be done slowly, one reader/follower at a time.
Exactly! I try to explain that to some of my vanilla marketing clients. They want 1000s of likes and follows instead of putting in the hard, slow work of building the list one person at a time.
Engagement outside of blogging has always been a different story for me. I don’t mind the small numbers because it’s much easier to keep up with people. I actually find the smaller numbers more practical because you can talk to others easier.
You are so right. The only reason I see anything on Twitter anymore is because I use the lists feature. But I miss a TON there and on Facebook because there are so many people. I hate missing stuff.
You make a great point about numbers and I’m seeing it myself. I get about twice the amount of hits per day as the amount of followers I have, and of those hits, half are viewing. I’ve been getting a lot more shares lately, too, and more followers on my social media accounts. I also noticed that my bog and name keep coming up in search terms. It tells me that the people that follow me really are reading what I write, and although I’m a blogger and not an author selling my work, it’s very inspiring. I’ve got a bunch of half-written posts that I need to get done. Too many ideas! I have two in particular that I’d like to turn into books, but in due time. I’m in research mode.
If you ever get past the research part, let me know. I’ll help in any way that I can.
And if you’d like to extend your reach, you should join Triberr and my Sex Bloggers tribe. A little bit of sharing on Twitter (or Facebook, but I prefer Twitter) and you’ll be amazed at the amount of people who start reading your blog – and becoming followers, etc.
I forget to look at numbers. (Maybe that’s due to my 7.4 follower status.) engaged friends is what I prefer. When you guys talk back to me, it’s better than numbers. Thanks for putting such great stuff out. Xoxo and squishy boob hugs. (Cause if you have them…)
I love the numbers because they fascinate me, but my favorite part is the comments. I get agitated when I have to make people wait more than 12 hours or so for a response. (No really, it stresses me out, lol.)
And mmmmm, squishy boob hugs…rawr. /giggles