Thursday, June 2, 2011

Progress Report

I’d like to shed some light on how The Memory Eater anthology is progressing and why I extended the submission deadline.

First things first.  I had a breakthrough in marketing, mainly by focusing on Twitter, which I began using on May 16th.  Here’s a look at how it helped my blog statistics:

March:  803 views (I began my blog on March 15th)
April:  1,287 views
May:  2,906 views (764 from Twitter alone)

With an average daily view count of around 170, I’m predicting 5,000-5,500 views in June.  Possibly more depending on how much time I have to advertise.

While traffic and interest has more than doubled, I wanted to give newcomers adequate time to write and edit their submissions, so I extended the deadline.  Will I do it again?  It depends on the following…

Several small publishers have showed interest in the project.  Now I haven’t had the time to respond to all of them yet, but I’m getting there. 

Truth is, within the last two weeks, I found out that three of my stories are going to be published.  Two of them are sci-fi novelettes accepted by the same publisher, so when the time is right, I’m hoping to pitch this anthology to them.  This could be very good, especially if I ended up getting contributors paid up front.  Not to mention the market the anthology would reach.  Keep fingers crossed!

This idea has already far exceeded my expectations and new paths are starting to open up for it.  But as always, my main focus is on producing quality, so back to the slush pile it is for me.

And to those writing stories, the best of luck to you!

C. P.

9 comments:

  1. Great stats for blog views! Congratulations on the acceptances too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations on your acceptances! I'm working on my submission for the anthology as we speak (or type, if you prefer).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Many thanks Cherie and Jenn:) Since I'm new to blogging, I'm not sure how those stats compare to others, but I'll take them. I just have to keep doing work! Now where'd I put my Pepsi Max?

    And Jenn, I'm also working on a story as we speak. Well, I'm revising. Must push onward!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your Memory Eater anthology should be a big hit! I just heard on the news that they are working on a drug that will erase memories (old news but they're making it new again). Wwill write up a story on this, can't wait! And congratulations on your publishing success! By the way, I found you on twitter.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congrats on your publishing success!

    That's an impressive increase in traffic. I may just have to check out this new fangled twitter thing for myself . . .

    ReplyDelete
  6. Amy, I didn't know about the drug to erase memories. I'll have to look that up. Sounds very interesting, especially seeing what people would delete. And thank you:)

    Laura, I had a Twitter account, but didn't touch it until a few weeks ago. It was definitely worth it to promote the anthology.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Congrats on the blog views! My blog stats jumped exponentially once I started really engaging in twitter as well. But strangely, even though its only a short line here and there, its much more time consuming than any other social media I find.

    I love the anthology, this is a fantastic idea, I can't wait to read it!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks, Mac:) Twitter really is time consuming. I spend on average around 1.5 to 2 hours a day managing it. It does get very tiring, but when I see the results, it motivates me to push forward.

    I hope you enjoy the book when it's done:) I'm having a blast putting it together.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I don't envy you. My anthology received about fifteen subs and only one had to be rejected. So I guess I got off lucky. Nice to be on your short list, by the way :) If I don't make it, I think my story can be easily reworked o remove the Memory Eater name and use something else.

    ReplyDelete