First of all, this is addressed almost exclusively to people who have followed me on Twitter or who have an extreme interest in Twitter in general. Everybody else, please read a different post on Jascha Writes (click here for what is currently the most-read recent post; the top 10 of all time are listed at the foot of every page of the blog) or a good book (click here for a not-so-randomly-chosen title from a recent AmazonUK bestseller list of psychological fiction).
I hope I made it clear before that I love Twitter--or, to be more precise, that I love it much more than I ever expected to. I used it hassle-free for the better part of a year and hope for a speedy return of those halcyon days.
It's just that we've hit a snag. I can't quite get in an it's-not-you-it's-me here; all I know is that between (a) Twitter, (b) the third-party software I need to manage my account and (c) me--something isn't quite working. Twitter and my software disagree in their tallies of my followers and people followed, to such an extent that both the software and I are (temporarily, I hope) unable to follow back additional people. (Believe me, you don't want to hear about it in any more detail.)
I'm posting this here as an apology to any readers who may have been given the impression that I-- May I say, 'that I trifled with their readerly affections'?
Out there in the Twitterverse there are Tweeps who don't 'follow back'. There may even be a few who, after being followed, unfollow their followers so as to be able to attract additional followers more quickly.
Quite simply, I wouldn't do that. Not any of that. Along with everything else doglike about me, I definitely follow back.
I'm working to fix the problem. And, frankly, I'm also hoping for a fix from the people who brought us Tweet Adder 3.
For now, once more, my apologies.
Tweet on.
(That's what works for me. Even now.)
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
29 January 2012
21 October 2011
Doing the Numbers, or, The Swimming Hole
Just a few words, this morning, about numbers. And thresholds.
I'm going to ignore, briefly, one of the best pieces of advice I've seen given to bloggers/tweeters, which goes something like 'No one but you cares about your own numbers; so what if you just added your 1000th follower or got your 5000th hit?'
But I'm blogging not only for what you might call read-only types; I'm blogging for everyone, potentially, and that includes people who are themselves bloggers or who might start blogging some day if they only knew how easy it is.
And I opened the door in Wednesday's post to at least a little talk about numbers when I mentioned that Monday's post about the Dickens centenary and readathon had become in less than 48 hours my sixth most-read post (of 'all time', which in the world of Jascha Writes means about 30 months). What I didn't realize at the time (because I was looking at the automatically generated most-read list that appears at the foot of every page of the blog and not at the actual numbers) was that Monday's Dickens post was in truth in a three-way tie for fourth place. By this morning, moreover, it was tied with last February's Ellery Queen post for third place. (The leader, if you will, continues to be Jo Nesbø, with my sole real Nesbø post to date scoring almost four times as many hits to date as the Dickens. Still back in the pack is determined newcomer James Hulbert, whoever that is, with respectable numbers of hits for four posts [in the top 10] relating to his novel A Kiss Before You Leave Me.)
As today's new business, I'd like to note two (additional) numbers, before they're swept away in the wash of ones and zeros in which we seem at times to be living.
Yesterday, Jascha Writes crossed the 10,000 threshold for cumulative page views ('pageviews all time history', in Blogger-speak)--thanks in no small measure to my friends Dickens and Nesbø, and, even more, to you. And, to every one of you who might have been wondering whether, if you 'gave' a blog, anyone would show up, I think this answers that question with a definitive yes.
The week's second threshold number may be less immediately significant to non-bloggers (and pre-bloggers, not-yet-bloggers), but most of the rest of you will understand. This is a Twitter number. Twitter caps at 2000 the number of people it allows you to follow--until you have enough followers yourself to justify letting that cap drift higher. The (unpublished, unofficial) threshold is currently 1820, and @jaschawrites crossed it a few days ago. Beyond this point, growth in the number of followers can become geometric again, after having been hampered in the run-up to 1820. And all of that I owe to the first 1820 and all the others to come. Thank you!
The moral of both of this week's threshold crossings, to put it succinctly, is a message of abundance: there's room here for everyone, and we create possibilities for one another and for ourselves. And that's something that we 'qualitative' types can hang on to when all the ones and zeros have moved on.
Because it isn't really a racetrack. It's a swimming hole.
Come on in....
I'm going to ignore, briefly, one of the best pieces of advice I've seen given to bloggers/tweeters, which goes something like 'No one but you cares about your own numbers; so what if you just added your 1000th follower or got your 5000th hit?'
But I'm blogging not only for what you might call read-only types; I'm blogging for everyone, potentially, and that includes people who are themselves bloggers or who might start blogging some day if they only knew how easy it is.
And I opened the door in Wednesday's post to at least a little talk about numbers when I mentioned that Monday's post about the Dickens centenary and readathon had become in less than 48 hours my sixth most-read post (of 'all time', which in the world of Jascha Writes means about 30 months). What I didn't realize at the time (because I was looking at the automatically generated most-read list that appears at the foot of every page of the blog and not at the actual numbers) was that Monday's Dickens post was in truth in a three-way tie for fourth place. By this morning, moreover, it was tied with last February's Ellery Queen post for third place. (The leader, if you will, continues to be Jo Nesbø, with my sole real Nesbø post to date scoring almost four times as many hits to date as the Dickens. Still back in the pack is determined newcomer James Hulbert, whoever that is, with respectable numbers of hits for four posts [in the top 10] relating to his novel A Kiss Before You Leave Me.)
As today's new business, I'd like to note two (additional) numbers, before they're swept away in the wash of ones and zeros in which we seem at times to be living.
Yesterday, Jascha Writes crossed the 10,000 threshold for cumulative page views ('pageviews all time history', in Blogger-speak)--thanks in no small measure to my friends Dickens and Nesbø, and, even more, to you. And, to every one of you who might have been wondering whether, if you 'gave' a blog, anyone would show up, I think this answers that question with a definitive yes.
The week's second threshold number may be less immediately significant to non-bloggers (and pre-bloggers, not-yet-bloggers), but most of the rest of you will understand. This is a Twitter number. Twitter caps at 2000 the number of people it allows you to follow--until you have enough followers yourself to justify letting that cap drift higher. The (unpublished, unofficial) threshold is currently 1820, and @jaschawrites crossed it a few days ago. Beyond this point, growth in the number of followers can become geometric again, after having been hampered in the run-up to 1820. And all of that I owe to the first 1820 and all the others to come. Thank you!
The moral of both of this week's threshold crossings, to put it succinctly, is a message of abundance: there's room here for everyone, and we create possibilities for one another and for ourselves. And that's something that we 'qualitative' types can hang on to when all the ones and zeros have moved on.
Because it isn't really a racetrack. It's a swimming hole.
Come on in....
08 August 2011
A Little Bird Told Me: Twitter
I think it was almost a year ago, from Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, in his Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, that I first got the recommendation that emerging authors use Twitter to reach more readers. Since then, Twitter usage has tripled, and even agents and 'legacy' (i.e., traditional) publishers are growing reluctant to work with new authors who don't use social media in general and Twitter in particular. But it was Jon F. Merz and his book How to Really Sell Ebooks that finally persuaded me to get on board.
I emitted my first tweet less than eight weeks ago, on 14 June, and I now have almost 700 followers, most of them added in the two weeks or so that I've been following Jon Merz's guidance. That number is modest if compared with the numbers following, say, Margaret Atwood (almost a quarter of a million) or Lady GaGa (almost 12.5 million), but it's 2.5 times my combined friends and fans numbers on Facebook after years there.
My weeks on Twitter have also seen the visitor numbers for this blog, Jascha Writes, more than triple.
I also like Twitter--for reasons I'm only beginning to understand, and that I hope to write about another day. And I appreciate my followers, and those I follow, beyond motives of PR and ebook sales.
Today I just want to welcome all my Twitter followers--past, present and future--to Jascha Writes and to promise to provide in future posts some fundamentals about myself and my work, starting with my novel A Kiss Before You Leave Me. Of course, you can already use the search window in the extreme upper-left corner of this page, or the 'blog archive' listing at the foot of the right-hand column, or the 'labels cloud' a bit higher, to make your way around the posts that are here now. As always, I hope you like what you find, and that you'll want to return.
See you here, and see you on Twitter!
I emitted my first tweet less than eight weeks ago, on 14 June, and I now have almost 700 followers, most of them added in the two weeks or so that I've been following Jon Merz's guidance. That number is modest if compared with the numbers following, say, Margaret Atwood (almost a quarter of a million) or Lady GaGa (almost 12.5 million), but it's 2.5 times my combined friends and fans numbers on Facebook after years there.
My weeks on Twitter have also seen the visitor numbers for this blog, Jascha Writes, more than triple.
I also like Twitter--for reasons I'm only beginning to understand, and that I hope to write about another day. And I appreciate my followers, and those I follow, beyond motives of PR and ebook sales.
Today I just want to welcome all my Twitter followers--past, present and future--to Jascha Writes and to promise to provide in future posts some fundamentals about myself and my work, starting with my novel A Kiss Before You Leave Me. Of course, you can already use the search window in the extreme upper-left corner of this page, or the 'blog archive' listing at the foot of the right-hand column, or the 'labels cloud' a bit higher, to make your way around the posts that are here now. As always, I hope you like what you find, and that you'll want to return.
See you here, and see you on Twitter!
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