Making Connections and Gaining Exposure

As per the title, this month's IWSG post deals with making connections and gaining exposure...

One positively great way is to do the A to Z challenge!! Every April I connect with tons of new bloggers. So I'm combining my IWSG post with my A to Z Reflections post! My stats for this year are below...

But, before I get to the results, here are some other things I learned during the challenge. The biggest thing some newer bloggers don't realize is: You can't just put your link on the list and post every day and expect your numbers to rise - you must go visit others and comment. You get out of it what you put into it, just like every other aspect in life. Here are a few other suggestions, and these carry through to helping your blog and audience grow, make it easier for others to follow you and get to know you better (and eventually buy your book!)

• Put your face on it - we are not beauty queens, (well, some of you are) authors are personas. Someday you will have fans and they will want to see you, not just a cute cartoon. This will also help them find you at events! (This rule apparently doesn't apply to Alex, Rulebreaker. Well, we do want to see him, but we let him be mysterious, like Charlie)
• We need contact info - say an agent comes across your blog and is blown away by a post and want to tell you. She doesn't see your email address anywhere, even in the "about" section or your profile, so she shrugs and moves on... Don't let this happen to you! If you're worried about spam infecting your home email, have a separate email just for your author stuff.
• Easy access to social media links - blogger and wordpress are not compatible. so if I liked a blog, I would search for a Twitter or G+ link. If you are tweeting or schmoogling or facebooking and you want more followers, put those links up!
• again, Make sure you get out there and visit others - real connections last for more than the challenge, just like IRL friends. I'm going to do my best to nurture my new found friends, and keep the current ones in the loop too!

Which brings us to...

The Numbers of A TO Z 2014!
The A to Z Challenge was again, a great success!
First, I want to say a special thank you to my Faithful Commenters with this award!

Alex (of course)       Fida       Madeline       Susan G K       Robin       Carrie-Anne

Sophie Duncan       Randi Lee       Debi Oneille

Sheena       Elizabeth       Christine       Sydney       C Lee

These awesome bloggers visited and commented here at least ten times - that's ten or more of the twenty-six letters! Some are long-time friends and some are new blog buddies I can't wait to get to know now that this is over. Such sweet support! THANK YOU! And if you have some bloggers you'd like to award it to, by all means, go ahead and pass it on!

Also, a huge thank you to everyone who came by and participated in the challenge. It's quite an undertaking. Way to go!

One last word of appreciation goes to our hosts - they're the ones bringing us together! THANKS!

Now, here are the numbers!
Each year, faced with such a vast amount of blogs to visit, my analytical side takes over. I want to maximize my time and visit the most blogs and remember who I met. I go thru the blogs alphabetically, starting with the A's on A day, add the B's, etc (but I don't count A, The, or My). I have a system and it's worked for four years now. So here are my results:

Total number of blogs visited: 472 (about 24% of the list, less than last year, but there's just so many!)
Number of new bloggers I'm following (thru various social media methods): 94 (20%)
Number of comments from newer bloggers that I visited: 65 (14%)
I did not comment on all the blogs I visited. Some didn't continue with the challenge, some were not my taste, and some wouldn't open... So out of those I visited, I did not comment on: 157 (33%)

And here's the alpha-chart:

*Outliers because there were so few of those letters. I love numbers!

Lastly, a note about May:
Another thank you to those who helped reveal my Broken Branch Falls cover (the giveaway is going on thru Friday, check it out here!)

Now, I need your opinion. Does that title sound like a mature post you'd want to read or what? My plan is to upgrade my blog and be a little more professional, well, with my titles anyway, because I'm usually funny or sarcastic with my post titles (no, not me!) I see some great, thought provoking titles on Twitter and I thought, I need to do that so more people will want to visit my blog!

And that leads to this. To revamp the blog and rally my strength for upcoming events (see sidebar), I'm taking a blogging break in May. I have one more release announcement on Friday, along with winners of the contest, then static fuzz until June 1 as I start my BROKEN BRANCH FALLS Blog Tour. Last chance to sign up! Here's the link for the form.

made from the a to z tidbits =)