How did your journey through the alphabet go? Did you meet new bloggers with similar interests? Are there any you would like to feature and share with others?
Yes. I joined several new-to-me blogs and found a bunch of books I wanted to read from my travels.
What were the highlights for you? (lowlights too...we want to hear it all)
Highlights for this blog was to get the word out on so man great games out to people that didn't know about them. Lowlights...trying to do this for two blogs at the same time!
Did you enjoy posting daily? What was your biggest hurdle? What was your easiest task?
I tend to post everyday anyway. Biggest hurdle was coming up with something appropriate for the letter in question that also fit with my theme. Easiest part was finding games to talk about.
Was time management an issue? (I know, silly question, when isn’t time management an issue - but, it is worth reflecting on)
It did cut into my schedule quite a bit to be honest.
And what about your content - did you have a theme or did you wing it? Was it easy to come up with ideas for each letter, or were some harder?
I had a theme and I stuck with it. But I had thought about it a lot and tried to find games ahead of time.
How about commenting - did you stumble upon lots of sites still using word verification? Did this prevent you from leaving a comment? What worked for your blog?
I tried to visit every blog in the challenge. Yes, I ran into a number that had Word Verification still turned on and it was annoying. Though much worse than that were the people the had to approve my post/comment and then never did.
I keep word verification turned off. I would rather have it easier for my readers than worry about spam.
What will you do different next year? (Yes, you are doing this next year, you know you are, even if your brain is telling you to run for the hills - it appreciates the exercise)
Try to get more posts in before April! Craft the posts in such a way to encourage more feedback.
What pearls of wisdom do you want to share with the Co-Hosts of this event? (We would love to hear from you and know what you think would make this awesome event even better)
There were a number of "dead" sites on the list and some were some that didn't link to their blog, but some other page. You might want to get more Co-Hosts next year to help clean out the non-participants (the ones that signed up then never posted) and dead links.
So I ended up with a bunch of new followers. 50 on the Other Side and almost 20 on Freedom of Nonbelief, and very little overlap between the two.
My growth in views was not as much relative to last year. But that is to be expected really.
I will be participating again next year.
One more question: do you think you saw a good return for your investment as far as followers go? For the amount of time you spent, the blogs your read, commented, and followed, did nearly as many return the favor? Just curious.
ReplyDeleteFor this blog, yes. For my other one "Freedom of Nonbelief", not sure. I didn't get as many, but not many people are willing to follow an atheism blog.
ReplyDeleteCongratulation on finishing the challenge. I didn't visit all blogs during the challenge but, cross my heart, I'm visiting every single one with the reflection post!Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteEvalina, This and that...
I'm still making rounds slowly but, well, maybe not so surely.
ReplyDeleteI think there are a lot of bloggers who sign up for the A to Z who don't really know how to blog or they are just too self-absorbed or too busy to properly interact. Oh well, that's blogging I guess.
Personally rather than more co-hosts to monitor things, I'm more in favor of greater automation that screens more efficiently and a better system of reporting problems as the Challenge progresses. As it is now things are too labor intensive for the co-hosts to properly manage the event while participating at the same time.
Rather than being a trivial blog hop, I'd rather see a better screened event where the participants are serious about playing according to the rules and we can ditch the self-promoters who don't care about interaction and the advertising blogs.
Lee
Tossing It Out