I Know You Are Out There - Sort Of

I've got to be honest, I assumed I was blogging to myself.  All the author sites say you have to blog (and use social media, la, la, la) to penetrate the market.  Anyone who knows me will realise that the social media pitch is unlikely to warm my heart - I do have Facebook and Twitter accounts but not for the reasons recommended.

To be fair, I tried for a couple of years to promote the concept of anti-social networking: I suggested www.getoutofmyfacebook.com and www.twatter.com, but nobody signed up - which is an indication of success given the remit, I guess.  In reality, once I'd gotten over the successful rejection of my anti-social networking ideas, I did sign up to FB (as it appears to be called in the hip posts), but mainly as a way of sharing photos of holidays and my daughter's wedding etc.  I signed up for Twitter because I heard a radio article that suggested that the good names were going fast - I was probably quite an early adopter but I've only used it about ten times.

But I decided to give the blog thing a go.  As I said above, I assumed nobody actually read my blogs and as a person who wouldn't look for or read other blogs it isn't surprising.  However, after writing a recent blog I found out that people are stumbling across the blog.  In the last month the stats are:

UK = 11 reads (probable some of mine in there)
US = 9 reads
Russia = 2 reads
Singapore = 1 read
Ukraine = 1 read

Additionally, but not in the last month, it seems that I've had quite a few visits from Canada too.  What has prompted me to record this data and post it is that over the last week I've seen an uptick in sales on the amazon.com website (as opposed to amazon.co.uk, which is actually quite flat right now).  I feel that it is quite difficult to stumble across books on the amazon sites so am amazed and flattered that people are spending their 99 cents (plus tax) on my wares and if you are one of those people then firstly I thank you and secondly (probably should be first actually) I hope you enjoy your read.

I don't know who you guys (and gals) are, or if you actually linger long enough to read my blog, or if you contemplate buying my books (plenty of links on earlier blog posts if you're interested).  If you do pass through my blog, please feel free to post a comment, if only to say you were passing through; or email me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com.  If you are spending your time perusing my blog and perhaps browsing the blurb on my books I'd love to hear from you.