Year-End Numbers, Crunched!
Here at Shousetsu Bang*Bang, we've had a pretty impressive year: eight spectacular issues, our first ebook versions, and a lot of planning and preparation for (potential) future endeavors. In fact, a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes, and so much of it has been relvetica's thankless tasks of maintaining the website and creating the downloadable issues. (hint: if you like the ebooks, she's the one you should thank)
Here's another thing that might not be obvious from the front end: we've had a pretty impressive year in terms of readership. Even accounting both for the general individual and fandom drift away from LiveJournal and for the introduction of ebook versions (which obviously don't generate pageviews), many people are still reading and enjoying every issue. I've used LiveJournal's built-in stats feature to take some snapshots of the graphs it generates, and I've uploaded them here so you can get a sense of just how many 'many' is:
Here's the whole year-long snapshot, complete with LJ's own interpretation of what those little colored bars mean. (Personally, I don't quite understand how the 'LiveJournal users' number can be bigger than the 'All visitors' number for the first nine months, but that's why I majored in English and not stats.)
January! Not much happened in January. Most of the traffic there is from people who were still reading last December's theme-free issue.
The Hooray for Hollywood issue, our first of the year, obviously came out on the 20th. As issues go, this one was on the petite side -- eight stories (seven of which were only one entry long) and one standalone image -- so it's hardly surprising that the total number of pageviews was small. This issue also marked our very first digital version!
March marked the release of our Leather and Lace special issue, the seventh of our f/f specials. Typically our ladyslash issues get far less love than the more standard boykissing offerings, but as you can see from the stats, this one held folks' interest! Hardly surprising, considering how good the thirteen stories and solo standalone image were.
Crime and Punishment was April's theme, with eleven stories and one standalone image.
May was the first 'off month' we'd had since January, with no issues released. Even on the slowest day of that month, though -- the 15th -- there were still 441 separate pageviews from sixty different viewers.
We were back in June with the oddly titled -- but very popular -- Weasels Ripped My Flesh issue. I'd been assuming from the moment we'd announced this theme that it would be a little strange and offputting to most potential contributors, but the eight stories and one standalone image took the challenge and ran with it.
July was another month without an issue but still with a lot of readers.
August brought quite a number of pageviews for our smallest issue ever: the After-School Special issue and its seven stories, only one of which was double-entry length. Its being the smallest, however, turned out to be handy for the ebook process, meaning that this was the first issue we could offer in multiple download formats: PDF, mobi, and ePub.
September had our A Little Night Music, our second-ever Artist Special, which contained three single images and four short comics.
And then October exploded: fifteen tales of Sword and Sorcery, a third of which were double-length. This is also the month where 'all visitors' begin to outstrip 'LiveJournal' users, which ... well, your guess is as good as mine as to what that means. (In fact, your guess may be better than mine, and if someone figures it out, do let me know.)
Our last 'off' month of the year, November, didn't see much of a drop in readership from October, despite no new issue's having been released.
December, obviously, is still incomplete, since we're still in the midst of it, but the dozen stories that make up this year's traditional year-end theme-free issue have been a definite hit. And this issue was huge: thirty separate entries, totalling around a quarter of a million total words, or about the size of a thousand-page book. While it's not technically our most contributed-to standard issue ever -- last year's Myths and Monsters issue's twenty stories and two standalone illustrations holds that title -- it's probably our wordiest.
If you want to know what the typical life cycle of a story looks like, allow me to present the statistics for Sliced, beeblebabe's story from this year's February issue:
Obviously, the most popular months for a story to be read are the month it comes out and the month immediately following. However, that doesn't mean the story gets forgotten about afterward; numbers drop off, to be sure, but even ten months after its debut, people are still reading. For contrast to readership, here's the life cycle of the same story's comments page:
As an author, I know that it can get incredibly discouraging to put all your effort into a story, polish it until it shines, toss it out into the ether ... and hear little or even nothing back. That's part of why I wanted to make the second part of this post: people are definitely reading, even if that's sometimes obvious from the back end and all but invisible from the front end. I picked this one because it's a single issue, it's from early enough in this year that you can see almost a full year's data for it, and I knew she wouldn't mind being singled out; I could have done it with any story, and it would have looked much the same. In fact, if you're a contributor and you're interested in how your own submissions have fared, stats-wise, email me and I'll share!
At any rate, here's the distillation:
Even when they're not leaving comments, people are reading, and even the small issues have a lot of eyes on them. Contributors, please don't be discouraged: your hard work has not gone unnoticed!
Spreading the word is important for getting readership and new contributors. This year featured a delightful number of debuts, both with pictures and with text. If you've been thinking about contributing but don't feel you have the experience, know that you're in good company.
Retweets, reblogs, and recommendations elsewhere are all much appreciated, because they're what get attention. The months when we've had lots of chatter on Twitter and Tumblr are also the months where we've had more pageviews relative to the number of entries.
The number of standalone art submissions has dwindled this year, such that we haven't had any since June, notwithstanding the artist issue. Artists, is there a way to make this a more workable opportunity for you, or is it something that should be discontinued?
In fact, in light of that question, consider this an open thread: if you've got questions, comments, suggestions, wishes, or anything else you want to get off your chest, please leave a comment here and we of the editorial staff will do our best to respond to you as our various holiday schedules permit.
Specific dates for the 2013 themes and a signup for the February issue will be arriving in the next few days, just in time for making some new year's resolutions about participation....
Here's another thing that might not be obvious from the front end: we've had a pretty impressive year in terms of readership. Even accounting both for the general individual and fandom drift away from LiveJournal and for the introduction of ebook versions (which obviously don't generate pageviews), many people are still reading and enjoying every issue. I've used LiveJournal's built-in stats feature to take some snapshots of the graphs it generates, and I've uploaded them here so you can get a sense of just how many 'many' is:
Here's the whole year-long snapshot, complete with LJ's own interpretation of what those little colored bars mean. (Personally, I don't quite understand how the 'LiveJournal users' number can be bigger than the 'All visitors' number for the first nine months, but that's why I majored in English and not stats.)
January! Not much happened in January. Most of the traffic there is from people who were still reading last December's theme-free issue.
The Hooray for Hollywood issue, our first of the year, obviously came out on the 20th. As issues go, this one was on the petite side -- eight stories (seven of which were only one entry long) and one standalone image -- so it's hardly surprising that the total number of pageviews was small. This issue also marked our very first digital version!
March marked the release of our Leather and Lace special issue, the seventh of our f/f specials. Typically our ladyslash issues get far less love than the more standard boykissing offerings, but as you can see from the stats, this one held folks' interest! Hardly surprising, considering how good the thirteen stories and solo standalone image were.
Crime and Punishment was April's theme, with eleven stories and one standalone image.
May was the first 'off month' we'd had since January, with no issues released. Even on the slowest day of that month, though -- the 15th -- there were still 441 separate pageviews from sixty different viewers.
We were back in June with the oddly titled -- but very popular -- Weasels Ripped My Flesh issue. I'd been assuming from the moment we'd announced this theme that it would be a little strange and offputting to most potential contributors, but the eight stories and one standalone image took the challenge and ran with it.
July was another month without an issue but still with a lot of readers.
August brought quite a number of pageviews for our smallest issue ever: the After-School Special issue and its seven stories, only one of which was double-entry length. Its being the smallest, however, turned out to be handy for the ebook process, meaning that this was the first issue we could offer in multiple download formats: PDF, mobi, and ePub.
September had our A Little Night Music, our second-ever Artist Special, which contained three single images and four short comics.
And then October exploded: fifteen tales of Sword and Sorcery, a third of which were double-length. This is also the month where 'all visitors' begin to outstrip 'LiveJournal' users, which ... well, your guess is as good as mine as to what that means. (In fact, your guess may be better than mine, and if someone figures it out, do let me know.)
Our last 'off' month of the year, November, didn't see much of a drop in readership from October, despite no new issue's having been released.
December, obviously, is still incomplete, since we're still in the midst of it, but the dozen stories that make up this year's traditional year-end theme-free issue have been a definite hit. And this issue was huge: thirty separate entries, totalling around a quarter of a million total words, or about the size of a thousand-page book. While it's not technically our most contributed-to standard issue ever -- last year's Myths and Monsters issue's twenty stories and two standalone illustrations holds that title -- it's probably our wordiest.
If you want to know what the typical life cycle of a story looks like, allow me to present the statistics for Sliced, beeblebabe's story from this year's February issue:
Obviously, the most popular months for a story to be read are the month it comes out and the month immediately following. However, that doesn't mean the story gets forgotten about afterward; numbers drop off, to be sure, but even ten months after its debut, people are still reading. For contrast to readership, here's the life cycle of the same story's comments page:
As an author, I know that it can get incredibly discouraging to put all your effort into a story, polish it until it shines, toss it out into the ether ... and hear little or even nothing back. That's part of why I wanted to make the second part of this post: people are definitely reading, even if that's sometimes obvious from the back end and all but invisible from the front end. I picked this one because it's a single issue, it's from early enough in this year that you can see almost a full year's data for it, and I knew she wouldn't mind being singled out; I could have done it with any story, and it would have looked much the same. In fact, if you're a contributor and you're interested in how your own submissions have fared, stats-wise, email me and I'll share!
At any rate, here's the distillation:
Even when they're not leaving comments, people are reading, and even the small issues have a lot of eyes on them. Contributors, please don't be discouraged: your hard work has not gone unnoticed!
Spreading the word is important for getting readership and new contributors. This year featured a delightful number of debuts, both with pictures and with text. If you've been thinking about contributing but don't feel you have the experience, know that you're in good company.
Retweets, reblogs, and recommendations elsewhere are all much appreciated, because they're what get attention. The months when we've had lots of chatter on Twitter and Tumblr are also the months where we've had more pageviews relative to the number of entries.
The number of standalone art submissions has dwindled this year, such that we haven't had any since June, notwithstanding the artist issue. Artists, is there a way to make this a more workable opportunity for you, or is it something that should be discontinued?
In fact, in light of that question, consider this an open thread: if you've got questions, comments, suggestions, wishes, or anything else you want to get off your chest, please leave a comment here and we of the editorial staff will do our best to respond to you as our various holiday schedules permit.
Specific dates for the 2013 themes and a signup for the February issue will be arriving in the next few days, just in time for making some new year's resolutions about participation....