2014 Year-End Numbers and Open Thread

[ladysisyphus]

We've done it before and we're doing it again! We've got a lot of data generated on readership and page views, but they're mostly only visible from the back end, so we've collected some screencaps and some numbers crunched for those of you who wonder, hey, just how many people are reading this thing

Comments

[beili]

It seems there was a technical trouble or there's an unclosed tag somewhere - everything after February's numbers is raw code.

[ladysisyphus]

Fixed, thank you! Boo, that's what I get for not looking at an entry before wandering off to do something else.

[beili]

Happens to the best. :) It looks so good now!

[isiscolo]

Thanks for all that you do!

I'd really like epub availability to happen sooner. (I make my own from the lj posts using GrabMyBooks.) This is part of the reason I haven't read any issues for...a while.

[ladysisyphus]

You're most welcome!

We like ebooks, but they're sort of an unfortunate double-edged sword in terms of the project: They make issues easy for readers to get and grab, but they're just death on feedback and signal boosting. When we did the big poll in May, we had more than a couple people say that the reason they don't leave comments or click hearts is that they read the issues on e-readers.

So it's not that we're deliberately refraining from putting out digital versions, since they are great and a lot of readers prefer them, and we absolutely have plans to make them for all our issues! But since they're a bit of a pain in the butt to do -- and since there are things like GrabMyBooks for people who just can't abide reading from a browser -- when our to-do list gets long and real life gets overwhelming, ebooks kind of get put on the back burner

[ladysisyphus]

Thank you for sharing your user experience with us! ...That sounds so disgustingly corporate, but honestly, we know there must be a bunch of different ways people go about devouring each issue, but we don't hear about most of them. So perspective is nice

[ladysisyphus]

Oh, that kind of 'Save For Later' thing is an interesting idea, definitely one we've never thought about before. I know it's not possible to do anything to modify LJ's existing structure, and I'd think that adding stories to your LJ memories is sort of assigning them greater permanent status than just 'oh yeah, remind me to look at that later'. But maybe there's a Wordpress plugin that would allow for bookmarking like that, hmm

Big Thanks!!!

[anonymous]

Also wanted to say "Thanks!" to the editors and authors. S2B2 is really something I look forward to. I, too, realized that I have skipped commenting on several issues for the past two years because of my new Kindle. I just save the story to Pocket, read it on my reader, love it, and then forget to come back to LJ and comment. This year, I am making a resolution to come back and let the authors and editors know that I appreciate their hard work and love everything about the magazine. The stats are very interesting, also. It shows that LJ is still a relevant place for content like this since people like me rely on it to get the new S2B2. Well, anyway, thanks again for all the hard work. The magazine is so wonderful and I hope the editors and authors know that they're appreciated!!!

RE: Big Thanks!!!

[ladysisyphus]

You're very welcome! And assuming that you're the anonymous person I've seen commenting on a couple stories recently, you can rest assured that the vast majority of authors (and artists, to a lesser degree) will still see comments left for them even on older entries. Not all of them will reply -- some habitually don't, some are trying to maintain anonymity, and some have just straight-up forgotten their LJ passwords -- but the odds are very good they'll be seen.

So thank you for making the effort! I'm certain the contributors appreciate it, as I know I surely do.