Analytics Suck

I just spent 8 hours or more writing a newsletter to 41 of my super fans. I filled it with infographics I created in Canva, links I carefully curated for them from youtube, and facts and reviews and a blog post I researched for them. This morning I proofed it for the tenth time and hit send. So happy that this was one of my better newsletters and they would absolutely get something out of it. Before I set out on my next writing adventure, another newsletter I edit for a writing group, I took a short course from Kit.com on email lists. One of the tips was to use your analytics to create better content for your subscribers. So I hopped on over to kit, which I have been using for 5 months now to check the likes and dislikes of my newsletter readers. I found out I have very few readers. Only 24% of my readers actually opened the email. That's okay. I will use their clickrates to see what they actually like. Clickrate was only 4.6% of those that opened the email even clicked on any of the links. That's okay. I will see what links they like and I will do more of that. It's like the beginning of a snowball... it's starts small and as you roll it, it grows bigger, right? There was only one of the many links I supply in a monthly newsletter that anyone clicked on. It was the link to my blogpost. Well for a moment that made me feel very proud. It was MY content they clicked on, not the curated content I offered them. Of the few who clicked, they wanted to read more that I had written and for a few moments that was making me feel really good as a writer. Well, guess what else you can see in the analytics on Kit.com... you can see who clicked and what they clicked on. So curious, clicked on the clickers and found out the clickers that clicked on my blog was my mom and myself. (of course, I clicked on the links to make sure they worked and I was the main clicker. My mom, well she was the other clicker that clicked on the link to read my featured blogpost. Thanks, Mom. I am happy my mom is reading my blog. Since I was two years old, she has been a true super fan, reading everything I have ever written. Okay, as disappointed as I was that no one is clicking on any of the links I put in my newsletter, I have to admit seeing my mom had clicked on my blogpost link did put a pretty big smile on my face. So here I am, writing a blogpost that only my mom will read instead of working on my novel. But I wanted to capture this moment. I wanted to start a fairly "private" journal of my writing life. I want to see the progress I make on this journey. I won't be sending out links to this blog or promoting it in anyway except maybe to my kids in my will. I just want to somehow document the time I am spending when no one is out there reading it but my mom and I. And then one day, when I have a thousand superfans that hang on every word and click on every link, then I will get to look back on this day at the start of this journey. And smile. The analytics suck but you gotta love the journey. This is My Writing Life.