Books of Mars

I blogged a couple of days ago with five ways to increase your blog readership. Here’s an additional five that I hope are helpful for those who like to look at their numbers every once in a while. But remember — writing always comes first!

1. Be a pro. Proofread and remove errors. If someone points one out to you, fix it and thank them for the feedback. Make your posts look professional, not hastily assembled or sloppy. The appearance of the post can’t help but make an impression. Take the time to preview the post and make sure all links lead to the right place.
2. Monitor results. You won’t know what works unless you’re looking at the data, even if it’s at the topmost level of “how many comments?” (This is a bad metric because so often the answer is “none.”)

Your profile matters. Fill out your profile on social networks and make sure it includes your website’s URL. This adds to its search engine ranking, making it appear higher in search engine results.

3. Pay attention to the Zeitgeist. Pulling your blog topics from Google or Twitter trends can be a good idea — as long as you have something useful to say. Don’t hashtag for the hell of it.
4. Content trumps cash. Producing good, interesting, useful content will outperform any amount of money thrown at advertising. I find that some social networks send me coupons to use on advertising every once in a while and I do use those — but once they’re used up, I stop the campaign.
5. Promote other people. This gives you good content if the recommendations are wholehearted and worthwhile.

I wrote this beginning of a steampunk Western story at ArmadilloCon this year. I’m transcribing a lot of stuff from my notebooks and thought people might enjoy this excerpt.

We came out of Texas with fire and iron in our blood. Our maker set us loose, said get ’em, gals! Then he stood back and spat.

She was in Kansas. Our leader, our model. We had to get to her.

So we walked, all thirty of us, dressed in tough black serge that tore nonetheless, got pulled away by thorns, and rough fingers of grass, and sand burrs. Bit by bit the clothes fell away and we weren’t a pack of black-bonneted little old ladies anymore. We were glittering steel and a spark of bright blue electricity in each eye.

Robot Carrie Nations, ready to spread the Temperance Word.

Let us backtrack and tell you the why and how that our Maker would have come up with. He talked about her all the time, had been in an Oklahoma saloon when she came through! Smashed it to flinders, used her famous axe on a whisky barrel till an alcoholic sheen covered the floor and old man Harcourt was there trying to lap it up off the planking. That was what made him see the Light, he said. A grown man, old enough to be his father, lapping up whiskey like a dog. That was when he took the Pledge, the same one engraved over each of our hearts.

We’re going to find Mother Nation. We’re his gift to her — thirty automatons, powered by phlogiston and hot blue liquid, ready to be set to work on the Crusade. His tribute. Another man might have sent flowers, or a diamond the size of a buffalo’s eye, or lengths of paisley silk. Not Thomas Y. D. Swift (or so the soles of our left feet read). Is he wooing her or enlisting in her army? We’re not sure. Humans are confusing sometimes.

(is that teaser enough? 🙂 )