one year
Thank you for being here. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my first essay on here. When I began this project somewhat on a whim, I had five or six essays already written with plans for a dozen or so more.
I set myself perhaps a bit of an ambitious target of one or two essays per week, which I happened to keep up with.
95 posts!
I have a logo now! (Thanks to Chris Olson!)
I finally made a Table of Contents (not every post is in there)!
I’m not going to do the math, but I’m guessing the average post is about 1,500-2,000 words long (I believe the longest essay on here is 5,000ish words and the shortest is about 500), which puts the word count for the whole year in the 140,000-190,000 range. That’s longer than The Fellowship of the Rings! Longer than most standalone novels, really.
A list of my personal favorites from the last year:
A list of the most popular posts:
My favorite things I’ve written that were posted elsewhere:
I have a few more things coming elsewhere that I like a whole lot.
I don’t know that I’ll hit 95 posts again over the next year. I think I’ll scale back to one essay per week. However, don’t be surprised if I continue sending two a week here and there.
I have some ideas brewing for what to do over the next year but I figured I should just check in with all of you instead, since you’re the ones reading. I’ll send out a Poll on Thursday to try and get some feedback from what you all would like to see more of.
But I hope you’ve enjoyed coming here to read my essays over the last year. I hope you’ll stick around for the coming year as well. I’ve been pleased to see how the readership has increased since that first essay a year ago. Back then, I think all of my readers were people I had met in person or at least who I’d known online for a long time. Now, well, there seems to be quite a bit more variety.
I’ve tried a few different ways to get word out there about these pieces. I find that instagram is mostly worthless for this. In truth, the best growth I’ve seen has had nothing to do with me trying to get the word out. It’s come through those of you who have shared my essays on your own accounts.
I’m thankful for that and would appreciate if you continue to share these here and there and everywhere when you feel like it.
As I said at the start of all this, there’s no need to pay for a subscription here. I’ll be posting all of these publicly probably forever. You also don’t need to be a paying subscriber to comment or anything like that.
However, I very much appreciate those of you who have chosen to pay for your subscription. It shouldn’t really influence me, but it has led to some of the more ambitious pieces, since I want you to feel that you’re getting something for your money.
I hope you feel it’s been worth it!
I hope you’ll pre-order my novella coming out a week from today. And I hope you’ll stick with me for the next few novellas coming out before the end of the year. And, of course, I hope you pick up the ones coming next year and ever after.
If you’d like to buy some books from me in person, I’ll be tabling at the Twin Cities Book Festival on October 15th.
And, finally, I hope you stick with me here. It’s been one of the more surprising years of my life, with a newborn spending weeks in the hospital and my dad toeing at death, so hopefully only pleasant surprises from here on out.
Happy anniversary! There must be something in the water, because it’s the anniversary of the Happy Wanderer this week too. I have appreciated not only your eloquence but also the huge variety of topics you write about. And when a post is about something I know nothing about (e.g. anything having to do with Game of Thrones), I forward your articles to my son, who also loves them.
Thank YOU, Eddy!