I won’t reproduce the message in its entirety, as I don’t have the reader’s permission to do so, but I recently received a lovely note from a reader who called my blog “eye-opening, fascinating, and inspirational” (!). He asked a question of me, about how many people read this blog, and I wrote him a short response, which I reproduce here in its entirety. And, I see that I (manically?) misread what he wrote – he didn’t say my blog was frustrating and guilt-inducing (as I seem to have understood him to say), but rather, that he has blogged off and on himself, and has found that to be frustrating and guilt-inducing. So, reader, I apologize for my slight misreading, and hope you are able to blog exactly as much as is rewarding and gratifying to you.
And here, for all, is my response to his questions:
Dear reader:
Thanks so much for writing, and for your enthusiasm – even if ambivalent. I’m sorry about your frustration and guilt.
The answer to your question about readership is that, at the moment, it’s pretty low – 50-100 people per day. It’s never been all that high – at its peak, about a year or two after I started, it was 200-500 people a day, with occasional spikes into the thousands when a large outlet linked to me.
In recent years, though, I’ve put zero effort into promoting it – I don’t comment any more on other blogs, don’t submit to contests, don’t tweet, don’t do anything, really, other than just keep on writing. And that has led to substantially reduced readership. There’s almost no one out there linking to me, so the ways people find me are pretty limited – it’s Google only. And I don’t do ANY SEO work, or do anything, really, to encourage people to find the blog, other than very occasionally writing a post with Google in mind. Add to that: the posts that draw new people to the blog tend to be posts that are not necessarily representative of the blog as a whole (my post on bratty subs, for example, consistently draws the most Google hits, and my blog is obviously NOT going to appeal to the vast majority of people searching that term).
I’m always a bit surprised at how small the audience is, as, best I can tell, I’m pretty much the only straight man writing a sex blog of any heft out there – and if you Google anything related to “male sex blog” you get me as result #1.
I don’t mind, though. I had a narcissistic hunger for readers when I started; nowadays, I write the blog for myself. So while I love having enthusiastic readers, the thought of chasing them just has no appeal.
So. Keep coming back – I love having readers – and I wish you the best (and hope your frustration and guilt ease).
Warmly, and with gratitude,
N.