The Numbers Game

This will only be a relatively short post, as I take a moment to quietly celebrate my reaching of, what to me, is something of a personal milestone on Vocal this week.

I must admit that I regularly check my Vocal stats, you know, just to keep an eye on how many reads my posts might be getting, and yesterday I received a pleasant surprise when I logged on! My 'Total reads' count had finally topped 2,000. Yay, me!

It has certainly taken a while . . . 1199 days to be exact . . . 3.2849 years . . . but hey, who's counting? :)

Yeah, I’ll admit it, the numbers fascinate me. Not just to see how an individual post might be doing, but also to be able to compare between the various platforms that I post stuff on.

Obviously the 2,000 page reads is a target that I have been hoping I would eventually reach, and mind you, it has taken longer to get there than I had hoped it might – not to mention it costing me more financially (eg the annual Vocal+ enrolment for more than three years) than the small amount I will have earned by it – but nonetheless, it is a sign of progress . . . and of persistence, perhaps.

What is particularly satisfying, however, is that while the first 1,000 reads may have taken 812 days, the second 1,000 only took 387 days. So, my stats are on an upward curve! Got to love that!

So, what do all these numbers actually mean? Well, for each of us they have different meanings. First and foremost, it is an indication that people are actually reading what we write, is it not? Validation for the hours we put in creating whatever it is we create. It's a good feeling knowing that we have been read. And an even better feeling is when we receive some acknowledgement for what we post. A 'Thank you', or a 'Good job' comment always helps us feel good about ourselves. And if we are lucky enough to receive a tip . . . even better! :)

But there are also other reasons why some of us post on Vocal, whether it is to tell our stories, or get a message across, increase our readership, or just plain try to make some money. It doesn’t matter what the reason might be, just that we are trying, and creating, and communicating.

When I first started posting here, I had two goals. The first was to try and increase my readership, having been posting LGBTQ themed stories online for twenty+ years on various platforms, while the second was to hopefully pick up a few dollars in doing so. I had no great expectation as to what might happen, or how this might pan out. I just wanted to try something different, and if I happened to make a few cents in doing so, then that would be a bonus.

And how did it pan out, you ask? Well, to be perfectly honest, it has been a hard slog. About 1.66 page reads per day kind of pales in comparison to the page reads I have received elsewhere. As an example, a twenty-two chapter story I posted here has had around 660 page reads in total, yet some chapters of this story where I have it posted elsewhere, have received more hits for one chapter, than the entire story received here.

Now, I’m not complaining by any means. There are obviously differences with reader demographics and all sorts of other things that come into play. I just wanted to point out that we need to be aware of these as we go chase our dreams, no matter where we upload them, lest disappointment might creep in.

The bottom line, however, is that it all just makes me want to try harder, or try to do things differently. But above all, it makes me want to keep going!

Let’s just see how long it takes me to tick off another 1,000 page reads, eh?