Wednesday, May 1, 2013

A to Z 2013 Reflections

The April A to Z is over.



This year I stuck with a theme and I find that more enjoyable.  I posted a lot of new demons and demon types, all of which will appear (with many more) in my next book, Eldritch Witchery.

I managed to visit every single blog in the Challenge.  I saw far less dead blogs or advertising blogs this year, thanks to the teams each of the hosts had to patrol the blogs.  I did see a lot of posts and replies back to posts on blogs as well.  Few RPG blogs in the mix this year, but there were a couple that were new to me.

I am not sure how my numbers came in.  I have been suffering from worsening migraines all month. In fact I would not have been able to do this at all if I hadn't written many of these posts a while back.  I do know my hits were slightly up, but I have a bunch of new followers.  I followed a lot of new blogs too.

I am beginning to wonder though if the A to Z is now too big.  The idea was to visit a lot of very different blogs, but at the size it is getting makes me wonder about the utility of that.  While I did visit every blog, I didn't leave comments on all of them.  Maybe on that particular day they were not posting anything I wanted to comment on.   Also many blogs didn't have their Google Friend Connect set up to be followed.

There is the Reflections Blog Hop. It's not open yet, but will be tomorrow. So I am going to try to hit all of those blogs as well.

Once again I did two blogs. The Other Side and one I share, Red Sonja she-devil With a Sword.
Next year (if I do it) I'll include Amazon Princess, a Wonder Woman blog I also share.

If you are looking for another Blog Hop may I suggest L.G. Keltner's Towel Day Blog Hop.


I am going to do games that would be good to emulate Douglas Adams' Universe here and then talk about the man himself over at my other blog The Freedom of Nonbelief.  So please sign up and join me on this one!




5 comments:

  1. Hi Timothy .. that's crazy - two blogs! and well done on getting round to see every blog .. also well done for finishing .. especially with migraine attacks.

    I just enjoy the process and get to meet and greet as and when I can ..

    Good luck with all your blog hopping .. I'll be very glad to be back to normal and looking at new projects .. cheers Hilary

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  2. Wow! I am so impressed that you visited all of the A-Z blogs! You are a machine! I have no idea how many I visited, but it wasn't even close to half of them. I'm trying to visit everyone who commented on at least on of my A-Z posts to see what they are up to post-challenge. I am really enjoying the vast array of new blog challenges I am learning about. This is my first year in A-Z so I really did enjoy it, I agree though, it is HUGE!

    Cheers from B at http://brandysbustlings.blogspot.ca/

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  3. You did an amazing job and I'm glad you were part of my team of Ambassadors. Thank you so much for the incredible job you did. I was seeing your comments all over the place so I know you were heavily making the rounds.

    The magnitude of the Challenge has come up in previous years and good suggestions have been offered. I still think I have a great solution if the proper programming can be achieved. We could go much bigger with A to Z but the list would definitely have to be approached in a different way.

    We'll be in contact later. Thanks again!

    Lee
    An A to Z Co-Host
    Tossing It Out

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  4. I have to admit I am not sure what can be done about the size myself.

    I think the categories were a great idea. The best idea though were the ambassadors to help monitor the sites and weed out the dead links, spam and advertising.

    I rechecked Google Analytics yesterday and my hits were up more than Blogger stats said they were.

    Planning on still hitting the sites in the A to Z sign-up. This time with the idea of looking for something to say on each site.

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  5. I'm sure leaving a comment where you had not commented before will increase your numbers some more.

    Are Blogger stats and Google Analytics different? I've never grasped stats too well. I sometimes look at the Blogger stats. I'll have to check Google.

    With the help of the team helpers we weeded out a little over 300 blogs from what we started with. A big help for a cleaner list.

    Lee
    An A to Z Co-Host
    Tossing It Out

    ReplyDelete

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