Yes, My Momentum Has Slowed

 

My The Storygraph giveaway for Running From Herself has completed its third day, and voila! Just like that, things have slowed to a crawl. 

That's okay and not unexpected, but it was fun while it lasted! At least I know I'll be awarding all 100 digital copies. As of this minute I have 349 entries and 13 to-reads. I like the to-reads! Give me more, please. And really, my entry percentage has only dropped by two points. 

Speaking of to-reads:

 

That said, I still have no purchases and only 285 Kindle Unlimited page reads. Since Running From Herself consists of 259 pages, maybe a new person has started reading (?) 

And I've made $1.39 in royalties this month! 🎸🎸 

On another note, I've been fiddling with my website. Number one, I really didn't like my author bio. Is there really a way to make oneself sound interesting? I'm not even interested in me. Aside from its dullness, it was too long. So I've tightened it up. I still also have a "personal" bio, which I feel makes me more relatable. Plus, to be honest, I have no real accomplishments to tout, so why not go the personal route? (DISCLAIMER: No one visits my website.)

I also began wondering about my site's SEO. Maybe no one visits because no one can find it. It seems that search engines frown on keyword stuffing (damn), so I came up with an abbreviated book description that includes some of those words. Can't hurt. I also updated my SEO settings somewhat.

I asked AI about comp books. It had previously given me a few comps and I wondered if including those could help. Ehh. "You can list them, but no linking, because that only benefits those authors, not you," it told me. Total agreement there. Those authors have already made tons of money, whereas I have made...$1.39. They should be linking to me! Help a girl out! I think I'll compromise and add a blog post on my site listing the few comps AI was gracious enough to give me (but no links!)

I don't like having a website that's too stuffed. There's probably a fine line, but I don't know what it is.   

I may have increased my visitors as a result of the giveaway, but that's just a guess. It is true, though, that in the past 24 hours I've gotten 71 visits--and only four are from China. Only 13 of those visits originated from Google, with 56 from "other". Could the "other" be Storygraph? Because I'm a nerd, I asked AI what (direct) / other means in "traffic acquisition". It led me down a meandering road to delete specific code from my website so Analytics could track my traffic sources specifically. I do think it's good to know these things, nerd or non-nerd--particularly for those of you who buy ads.

And that about does it for today. Slow momentum is better than no momentum. Is that an oxymoron? Well, dang it, the numbers have moved, and in the right direction.

So, there you go.