Readers or Writers, That is the Question
Readers or Writers
Just a thought… Tens of millions of posts are published daily by Facebook, Twitter, G+, other social networks, and blogs.
People love sharing items that are humorous, emotional, or prejudiced. But creating content worthy of sharing is a different matter.
Why does a particular post go Viral?
It is impossible to predict in advance which article, story, or poem suddenly gets an un-proportional amount of views. Ironically enough, these are sometimes the very submissions about which we were having trouble deciding if they should be published at all!
But we did learn from experience that a good title, supported by an eye-catching visual, will have a substantial impact on the views and feedback (comments) a particular post gets.
The use of the right tags (keywords) will make the post rank high in popular (Google ) searches.
Censorship
Many of our “hardcore” contributors know that our staff is instructed never to censor even the most minuscule word in a submitted post. Our respect for and solidarity with our contributors dictates this fundamental decision. Only posts lacking the required quality and those of poor taste will be rejected.
This policy of non-censoring does get us into trouble now and then, and Google penalizes our magazine on a regular basis by refusing to rank or index certain pages. Of course, they do not ask their staff to read personally, to evaluate, and to pass sentence on our content, but have their daily changing algorithms do that for them. So be it!
Of course, our magazine does adhere to a strict set of ethical rules and warns visitors when a post contains adult material (18+).
Optimizing the Magazine
Since the launch of Angie’s Diary in May 2008, our magazine has been going through many changes: Visitor demographics, content structure, design, and whatnot. Using the input and feedback from our members and readers, we try to improve our magazine on a daily basis. At this moment in time, we are again evaluating if our content structure is up to date or if we need to broaden or rather narrow our scope.
Personally, I would like more articles in the categories of Politics, Philosophy, and Psychology. Additionally, we are always on the lookout for columnists who have the stamina to do weekly Movie -and Music Reviews. I am convinced that we shall increase our non-writing readers if we manage to broaden our content in these areas.
If you feel you would be able to make interesting contributions in these fields while gaining meaningful exposure for your authorship, please check our page on how to post.
Non-Writing Readers
Why do we aim to increase the engagement of our non-writing visitors?
Non-writing readers outnumber writers at a ratio of 10,000:1.
I agree with your article Angie. The most important thing is a catchy title and good linking photographs. Yes, there is no accounting for taste LOL as my story “The story that shall not be named” has proven on all fronts.
Catchy and intriguing title, your nice photo of the church and a mysterious ghost story from me. As soon as I wrote it, I never liked it. Yet on here, Facebook and generally on line, it is a massive hit, to the extent it will be getting printed twice for Halloween in the USA. Once in New Jersey and the other time in Pittsburgh.
My biggest selling story is Holding Richmond, again a story I didn’t think would catch on as it went against the images of Vampires set by Hammer films and Twilight. I know Pat Canella is out selling HR but Patti has been on sale for 3 months compared to the 6 weeks of HR. HR sold 6 copies in one weekend as opposed to Patti’s 10 in 3 months.
As a byword if you type in Pat Canella in the Google search bar- you get the link to Angie’s diary as the top link 🙂
Glad it made sense, dear Alan!
You score that high in Google ranking for the reasons I outlined above.
Thanks for commenting.
Heh – having just read Alan’s comment I Googled Globular Van der Graff’s Goblin Tales for Adults Angie, and guess what The Angie’s DIARY link is the first one as well. LOL 🙂
When I was thinking of a title for a new story about dragons, friends suggested Googling names, we got it narrowed to DracoDreaming which has only 2,500 hits.
Again your article re-enforces the one I did a while back about selling a story, Angie. Even to a big name, TITLES mean more than anything. When I go to a book store if I see a catchy title, I will look at it-no matter who is the writer. I rarely go for names. Unless I am following a series (Bones).
A title called “Sheep” sends buyers off from the start, then to see a girl holding her head and screaming just gets them confused. “Two minutes to sell,” you have lost vital seconds trying to get a hook.
What do the English say again?
The proof is in the pudding?
Angie-the meaning of that phrase goes back to Henry VIII, when he was taking over the churches and monasteries from the Pope. The deeds to churches were hidden in puddings. This time in our history also relates to the nursery rhyme “Little Jack Horner.”
Thank you for this, Alan. I often wondered where that came from.
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said “What a good boy am I!”
…sweet nostalgia, learned this in primary school 🙂
Interesting piece indeed!
It makes sense to steer the magazine towards a more mainstream user-group.
Readers buy books and the more visitors the more readers for our work.
Even if that means you won’t be able to maintain the same personal service level we got so spoiled with over time 🙂
Carletta
Lots of well known nursery rhymes are based in fact, it was a way of passing history on when people couldn’t write, Angie. It could make for a good article that theme 😉
Readers are sometimes want to be writers and they read, read, read, and research as much as possible. Since you, Angie, have some of the more interesting posts for readers – donated by fantastic writers – and directed by you and your partner to the world – how else can we say thanks to you for providing the reader with good work, and the writer with a place to post it. As both the reader, writer, researcher, and author – there is nothing better for me than being here. Sincerely, Nancy
Thank you, dear Nancy, for your uplifting words and never waning support!
X Angie