I thought I’d made adequate plans for the possibility that I might be knocked offline once the destruction/reconstruction project began. We had eight new Pete Wood Challenge flash fiction stories all set up in the queue and ready to be published automatically; no further editorial intervention required. All I had to do was let the cron jobs run.
But…
In keeping with the principle that if it ain’t advertised, it never happened, the readership numbers for these stories absolutely tanked. The first day’s stories drew decent numbers, with Karin Terebessy’s story, “Do Not Go Gentle,” getting the most reads and the most comments, as expected.
But after that, the readership numbers just fell off the cliff, to perish miserably on the rocky shore below. We didn’t even get a dead cat bounce from any of the subsequent stories.
What happened?
I have two theories. The first is so cynical I’m keeping it to myself for now, but the second stems from the fact that the first day’s stories were the only ones I was able to cross-promote on X/Twitter and Bluesky. After that, I was knocked offline and had no access to our X or Bluesky accounts until yesterday. Therefore, to test this theory, this week I’m going to try to draw your attention back to these eight stories, in hopes of seeing an increase in the number of readers.
Today, we begin with the Honorable Mentions.
“Panne d'Essence” • by Andrew Jensen
“Once With a Blue Moose” • by Lori Jensen
“Parting Ways” • by C. L. Sidell
“What Fuels Us” • by Richard Zwicker
“Do Not Go Gentle” • by Karin Terebessy
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But if you’ve already read these stories, then why not take a look at this new book we just released, also during the period when we were unable to access our X/Twitter and Bluesky accounts?
Heart of Dorkness & Other Stories, a chapbook of short stories by best-selling author Henry Vogel, is a fun and lively little collection you should get just to read the cover story, “Heart of Dorkness”…
If Heart of Dorkness does well, though, you should know that it’s just the first in a series of little book projects we have in the works for release in 2025.
Check it out! Convince us it’s a good idea to release more books like this one and Privateers of Mars!
3 comments:
Old tech for the win! I still use an RSS reader to follow the Stupefying Stories website and I never missed a story.
HA! THANKS!
But actually: RSS still works? I'm surprised. Blogspot told us they were discontinuing support for it about two years ago. Hmm...
I should add that I'm glad RSS still works because I don't do any of the social media sites where you post things. If RSS quits working, I'd have to remember to check daily, which I may or may not remember to do. Barring that, I'd have to beg for an email list or something...
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