A few interesting readership trends:
First off, since seeing a significant viewership increase about two months ago when I started the Arisugawa Park "cloud novel" project and began blogging in earnest, I have stayed fairly consistent at around 10,000 to 12,000 views per month. No mean feat, considering that I have a strict "no video, no clickbait, no bullshit"policy. Here is a look at trends over the past month:
Let's take a look at the unique visitors:
So what to make of the 703 views and only 53 unique visitors on May 13? I believe it's that a number of first time visitors got interested in the content and started clicking around in the blog archives, reading other stuff. This is valuable in its own right––it means that what I write has heft and captures the interest of casual readers.
Now let's look at the stats for ArisugawaPark, to see if they correspond. The site was hovering at about 4-10 views and 1-2 unique viewers per day until I relaunched it as a home of the "cloud novel" last month.
A relatively large spike, 129 page views on May 15, when I released the latest episode of Ari Park. In other words, some readers are visiting AP to get caught up on the story, refresh. This is encouraging to say the least––the first time I got a real spike from the publication of an AP episode.
For the sake of completeness, here are the unique visitors for ArisugawaPark:
Thanks for nerding out with me on this and exploring the dynamics of growing a blog audience. This may be something that you can get something practical out of if you are considering publishing a cloud novel of your own. Bottom line: it is not quick or easy, but an audience gradually grows.
As for Ari Park 1.17 - Imbecile? It is coming very soon, possibly mañana.
Damon D. Dawson of Bandito College