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2019: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Happy New Year, dear readers!

I’ve had a wonderful break over Christmas. I hope that you had the same. I return to this space refreshed and eager for all that 2019 brings.

But before I look to the future, it’s good to pause for a moment to review this last year. It’s interesting (to me, at least!) to see if I can spot any trends, or determine if there’s anything that I’m doing that people particularly like.

So, here goes.

  1. Followers – the number of followers of the blog (people who click that magical “follow” button) has risen slightly over 2018. As of today I have 199 followers. So close to 200! It’s good that this number has gone up and not down, but it still would be nice to have that number be bigger. Oh well. However, I am very thankful to each and every one of you who have either just visited the blog and read a post here and there, or who faithfully follow and read every week’s offering. It’s very gratifying to know there are people out there who get some enjoyment out of this space. It’s interesting to look through the list of followers. I see other writers, book reviewers, artists, a gardener, an adventure traveller, a scientist, historians, editors, and many other fascinating people from all over the world. Thank you! And a special shout-out to my newest follower, The Hannie Corner, who joined up on December 30th. She obviously loves to read, as she reviews books on her blog, and seeing as I have some Hannies in my family tree we might even share more than a love of books.
  2. Changes I made last year – in 2018 I tried posting more at the beginning of the week (ideally Monday) instead of at the end. To be honest I wasn’t very successful at that. Somehow having the weekend before a post was due gave me a false sense of security that I had time to get a post written, but I would almost inevitably wake up on Monday realizing I had not got anything ready. Also my work schedule changed a bit, with the addition of working Monday morning. By the time I went to work, came home to have lunch and then walked the dog, it felt like the afternoon was half over and barely had time to start the initial research on a post, never mind writing it.   All of this meant I felt behind the eight ball all year. As a result, In 2019 I’m moving my posting day back to Friday. It just feels more doable to me. In 2018 I also tried to be more disciplined in setting out a schedule ahead of topics to write about. This was a success for me. Even if I didn’t always follow it exactly, it really helped with the dreaded blank page when I sat down to write on the blog. I will continue this in 2019.
  3. Most popular post on the blog – this is the same as last year. It’s my review of the Netflix series, “The Last Kingdom.” It has had 343 views in 2018, even though that post was from 2016.  Wordpress tells me that some of the searches that brought readers to that post included phrases like “why is Skorpa’s teeth red?” I guess having the answer to that question in the post brought people there! At any rate, I’m happy to solve that little mystery for people. And yes, I’m still enjoying that series, although I will admit I like Uthred more as a Saxon than a Dane…
  4. Other popular postssecond most popular post was The Wanderer, which was a repost in August of a post from a couple of years ago. I suspect this is because of the tie-in to the Lord of the Rings, as I comment on how portions of this Anglo-Saxon poem was quoted in the book and movie. Maybe I should do more reviews and mentions of TV shows and movies? Heh. The third most popular was the post on the Franks Casket, which came from October. I’m glad one of my Anglo-Saxon posts reached the top three, at any rate.
  5. Least popular post – the dubious honour of the least popular post of the top ten in 2018 was the introduction to last year’s reading series, 2018 Reading Challenge: The Year of Reading Buechner. It’s possibly because that came up early in January, and people hadn’t quite got into the routine of catching up on their blog reading. Also possible that it just wasn’t that interesting to people. My other reviews of Buechner books this year all fell below that in rankings, so I suppose I could see it as being the most popular of my reading series posts this year, instead of the least popular of my top ten posts.

Looking ahead: 

Wilding_cover32019 is going to be a big year on The Traveller’s Path. On February 5th I will be self-publishing my first novel, Wilding, on all the major e-retailers such as Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, etc. I”ve got the MS back from the proofreader now, and am making the final changes so that it’s ready to go. I’m also figuring out how to provide for paperback copies as well.

I’ve been having a think about this and decided that I’m going to have to make some changes here on the blog in order to make sure I’m making the best use of my time. For better or worse, here’s what I’ve decided.

  1. Less frequent posting schedule. There’s a big chunk of time I spend each week getting the posts ready. And while I enjoy it and am proud of the pieces I put up here, I find that the time spent has eaten into my other writing time. I have a hard time writing short stories, for example. And what with publication looming and then the preparation for Book 2 after that, I feel like I should cut back here in order to concentrate more on that. So, you will see posts here twice a month, generally, instead of once a week. I hope that will give me more time to concentrate on the books and the business end of publishing and marketing. I’ve spent a lot of time on my novel writing, I need to concentrate on giving it the best start possible. However, you might find that I will post more often, occasionally, when I have more time or when I need to inform you of book news. Stay tuned!
  2. No reading series this year. This was a tough decision. I loved my Year Of Reading… series, and it has opened me up to books and authors I probably wouldn’t have read if I hadn’t disciplined myself to a reading schedule of books. But, again, it comes down to time. Having to read one of the books in the schedule each month ate into time I could have spent writing or planning ahead on the books. I also wonder if my reading series was not of interest to my blog readers, who maybe are coming here for posts on Anglo-Saxon history, or news on my book or fantasy books in general. So for this year, I am putting my reading series on hiatus.  I will continue to post on my various series on Anglo-Saxon England, looking at the customs, society, and anything else to do with that fascinating time.
  3. New website? I am seriously considering  making this blog part of a bigger website, which I can use to showcase my books. It seems a logical step that once you have published a book, you should have a dedicated website to promote them. This blog will be one of the pages on that site. This will likely happen in the next six months.

Onwards and upwards! Thank you for joining me on the journey so far, and I look forward to new adventures ahead in 2019!

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