Advertising Update #4

So I changed the ad box on Superstition. After looking at it, it appeared that the half-banner was being cut off. And that's not fair to my advertisers.

I tried everything I could to fix the box, but blogger code seemed to override the html that set the width of the box.

So I decided to try the skyscraper box instead. It appears to fit in with the general layout of the page without cutting off any ads.

Quick Reader Poll

So I have two quick questions for the readers:

1. Would you be interested in purchasing any merchandise with the BOI Seal?

2. If I got a paypal tip jar, would people donate?

Feel free to reply in the comments and to do so anonymously.

Thanks.

Advertising Update #3

I have just added a Project Wonderful Ad space to Superstition. Hopefully, I will get people advertising sometime in the near future. I'm just looking for a way to help pay for my own advertising. We'll see how it goes.

I have no idea if anyone even reads the main blog, so I will hold off on putting an ad box here.

And hey, I may actually get better traffic reports from Project Wonderful than from Google Adsense.

Advertising update #2

As of this writing, I have had 145 clicks on my ads, 133 of them unique. Yesterday, I had well over 300 page views out of a total of 1800 since the site started up back in February. I've also nearly doubled my ad income since launching the blitz, compared to what I'd earned up to this point.

Now, I'm no where near paying for my ad outlay, and I have no idea how many people stuck around to read more than the intro chapter, and how many will continue to come back. But I've had at least 12 repeat visitors and everyone who came read an average of 3 chapters. So I'm inclined to think I picked up some new folks (again, if you're here, I'd love to hear from you).

Because I'm running Google Ads, it'll likely be a long time before I make back the money I've spent thus far on advertising. But that's okay. I think I've advertised enough for now. Hopefully, if you like my writing, you'll send your friends my way. Or hey, if you don't like it, send them here to mock it - Google doesn't care WHY you stop by, just THAT you stop by. ;)

But overall, I've seen a return on my investment from all three places I chose to advertise, and thus I deem the experiment a success. Thanks for reading!

Advertising Update

Well, it's paying off already. I went ahead and upped my bid on Alexandra Erin's main site Tales of Mu, as well as taking an add on Sonja Nitschke's Mutants. The latter because it's also a webnovel, and it's set in a world similar to our own with a twist. So it seems like we'd reach a similar audience.

So far, I've spent $1.78, and I've had 20 new people drop in on the site. And I'll be the first to admit it's not the most exciting ad in the world. I have no idea how many people have stayed (so if you were drawn in by the ad, I'd love to hear from you), but the ad has been viewed by 2900 people on ToMu alone. So I think it's been worth it.

Entering the World of Advertising

So I've placed my first bid on ads for Superstition. I'm using Project Wonderful to advertise on Alexandra Erin's main site (link on the right), as well as her story Tribe. Tribe has a similar feel to Superstition, which is why I chose to advertise there. I picked the main site because it gets a lot of readers. Although I purposely didn't set the high bid for the main site. But the ad is up at Tribe. It's a simple ad, but hopefully it'll bring in some traffic.

To start, I am investing $10. While I won't make this back in terms of Google Ads, I'd rather just build up a stock of readers at this point.

If anyone has any suggestions for other sites to advertise on, please feel free to leave a note in the comments.

BOI Seal

So I am happy to present the seal of the Bureau of Occult Investigations, as described in Chapter 17.* Tell me that wouldn't look awesome on a door, a jacket, or some letterhead.

*Note - I made some slight changes to the seal description from the original story, to match the seal I finally came up with.

Superstition Book One Title

Has been revealed!

I hope you enjoy reading "Something Wicked This Way Comes."

Slight Delay

I'll be posting Chapter 16 tomorrow. I went to a conference this weekend, which included a bright and early flight at 6 am, so I'm too wiped. One of these days, I'll build up a backlog, so this won't happen.

See you tomorrow.

8800 Words

That's the current length of Superstition. It's not a whole lot, but it's probably the most I've ever written in terms of sustained fiction. I've done plenty of papers that were longer for school, and I've done other fiction writing that totals more than this. But in terms of one, ongoing piece, this is a personal record.

It also just drips onto 22 single-spaced pages. This is approaching novella length. And there's more to come.

Thanks for sticking with me this far. Hopefully you'll enjoy the next 8800 words even more.