WordPress is telling me that I have about 250 to 300 unique visitors per month to this site. That has remained constant since I started tracking numbers in 2013. That is not a large sample period, but it does include some quiet months and some very busy months. Case in point, August was very busy, with two to three posts every week whereas April was spotty at best, with only one post in the first three weeks.
I force myself to try to think of things to write here, things that might be of interest to either other designers (how would I approach turning Borderlands into a tabletop RPG) or just other gamers (the Savage Zanzibar posts). I do that to try to keep eyes on this site because this is my business, and more eyeballs hopefully means more purchases.
Since the number of eyeballs is consistent, the number of posts doesn’t seem to really matter.
Wow. Talk about a kick right in motivation’s junk.
I’m going to be straight with you: figuring out what to write is hard. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem writing gaming stuff for my own use – rules, adventures, campaigns – and when I can, I’ll share it with you (like I did for Direct Action or the Sword Noir one-pagers), but most of my gaming writing is either 1) an attempt to obtain legal currency or 2) for my own use and would need serious work to be shared with the public. This means that I generally need to think up a topic and write an article specifically for this site.
Work. Huh. What is it good for? Absolutely . . .
I’m not sure. Looking at the numbers, they seem to be telling me that I am doing a lot of work for nothing. Post about new project, new products, Kickstarters, sales, etc. That should be enough. Maybe once a week. But that feels wrong. Really wrong. The evidence is there but my heart is telling me something else.
Will I stop writing articles? Like I said, my gut (heart, innards, whatever) tells me I need to keep posting, so I think I’d feel guilty not writing and posting. I don’t think I’m going to feel the need to do three posts a week consistently. But I also see no pattern in what articles draw attention.
So, I will keep plugging away. If you have suggestions, share them. If you are one of the 250 to 300, thanks.