Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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Much traffic

The last forty-eight hours have seen more traffic to this blog than ever before. More than 30 other blogs linked to the “How to Rewrite” post, bringing more than 2,000 visitors on both days. Wow. I usually get around 800 a day. Thanks, everyone. I wasn’t saying anything particularly new, but I’m glad if my take on the obvious is useful to some of you. Yay!

In case you were wondering, my most popular (by a country mile) posts are:

How to Rewrite
How to Write a Novel
First Novel Advances
Too Young to Publish
Being Dumped

So if I want to attract lots of hits I have to give writing tips or talk about heart break. Maybe I should do a post on How to Write about Your Heart Being Broken?1

Or I could keep doing what I always do which is to write about whatever I feel like. Such as the Australia-India series back home. Go, Tendulkar! Make it a competition!

  1. Listen to lots of Chris Isaak. What a whinger! [↩]

Posted by Justine at 0:18, 4 January 2008 under Bloggery | 15 Comments »

Comments

  1. Sean Says:

    Hiya, I just left this on Scott’s blog too, but it seems smarter to say the same thing twice, since it pertains to both of you.
    When you guys are in Michigan for the ConFusion thing, are there any chances you can do something outside of the con? Chiefly, something that doesn’t cost $45 to get into?
    Thanks.

    January 4th, 2008 at 12:29 AM

  2. Sash Says:

    Argh, summer! i was wondering when you’d get onto cricket.

    watch those numbers plummet.

    sacrilege, i know.

    January 4th, 2008 at 6:00 AM

  3. Tim Says:

    re chris isaak: yes, a whinger, but what a voice!

    re tendulkar: i’ve long wanted him to show one more run of proper “little master” form before he hangs up his boots. now would seem to be the perfect time . . .

    January 4th, 2008 at 8:27 AM

  4. Patrick Says:

    You could try posting pictures of a cat.

    January 4th, 2008 at 9:07 AM

  5. lunamoth Says:

    I think maybe it’s because the way you said it seems to click more than the way others have said it…? maybe?

    January 4th, 2008 at 9:32 AM

  6. 6. Justine Says:

    Sean: I’m sorry but it doesn’t look like it. They’ve got us working pretty hard as GoHs. There’s a chance we’ll be back in the area later in the year though.

    Sash: I’ll have you know that my beginner’s guide to cricket is also very popular!

    Patrick: Not on this blog!

    lunamoth: Maybe. I think there’s a real thirst for straightforward how-tos about most anything really. A lot of people want to know how to write (43,000,000 google hits), but a lot of people also want to sing (5,640,000 hits) and dance (16,000,000) and deal with depression (3,460,000) and tie a tie (14,900,000).

    January 4th, 2008 at 10:53 AM

  7. lunamoth Says:

    I think there’s a real thirst for straightforward how-tos about most anything really.

    That, and also I think that various people assimilate information very differently. This post mightn’t have worked for some, but it worked for me.

    But sometimes, yeah, what could have taken a 50k-word ‘how to’ book to explain (which is drudgery and boringness and another-book-for-the-pile-to-be-read), you managed to aencapsulate into a single blog post in an easy-to-follow manner. Were you an educator by chance? ;-)

    January 4th, 2008 at 11:33 AM

  8. Patrick Says:

    Maybe just pictures of Scott, with odd captions of what he might really be thinking. it’ll be a new trend – ‘LOLScott’.

    January 4th, 2008 at 1:23 PM

  9. Kadie-Wa Says:

    I think that you should do a combo of both.

    That’d be cool.

    January 4th, 2008 at 4:22 PM

  10. Mary Elizabeth S. Says:

    Keep doing what you always do! Your writing advice wouldn’t be as appealing otherwise. Your blog posts show us a bit of who you are, and tips us off that you’re the right sort of person to be taking advice from. (That and the whole ‘published’ thing, of course, but there’ve been published authors whose advice didn’t work for me just as there’ve been non-published writers whose adive worked wonders.)

    ~Mary

    January 4th, 2008 at 9:05 PM

  11. 11. Justine Says:

    Mary: Tee hee. No worries about that. The minute I feel pressured to get lots of hits blah blah blah that’s the minute I lose interest in this here blog. Many of my favourite posts are amongst the least trafficked.

    Right now and for the last three + years it’s been a fun, relaxing break from my work. If that stops then I’ll stop bloggen.

    January 4th, 2008 at 9:53 PM

  12. ysa Says:

    It is vitally important to have more crickety bloggy goodness. Please ma’am, may we have some more? It is so vitally important that I am considering blogging myself so that I can talk about my favorite team, the Baysiders. Which no-one has heard of but the teams in my league. I am just not as interesting as you are, justine!

    And the book bloggy bits are not so bad either!

    January 4th, 2008 at 10:32 PM

  13. Mary Elizabeth S. Says:

    Glad to hear it! I loves your blog just the way it is. (and no, it’s not *just* because of the quokkas…)

    ~Mary

    January 6th, 2008 at 12:12 AM

  14. Sheryl Says:

    Or, apparently, you could post about why you hate Oprah:

    http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2007_4481522

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:47 PM

  15. 15. Justine Says:

    I’ll get right on that. But wait, I don’t hate Oprah . . .

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:54 PM

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