I don’t usually post on Sundays, but thought I’d share a milestone for Bob on Books, the blog, today. About 3:30 pm today. I passed the one million view mark.

One one hand, that is not a particularly remarkable accomplishment. It has taken nearly eight years and over 2500 posts to reach that mark, There are some bloggers who reach that mark with a single blog post! In my case, it was a matter of perseverance.

What is remarkable is all the people who helped make that possible and the real intent of this post is not so much to brag as to say “thank you” for all those who visited, over 683,000! Then there are all the authors whose books I reviewed, the publicists who sent many of those for review, and the loyal followers from Youngstown who not only visited but often suggested ideas for posts, and sometimes materials I could not otherwise have found. I’ve been blessed to be able to post in a number of Facebook groups that have helped grow the audience and I appreciate all the admins who have put up with me! I’m also grateful for the Bob on Books Facebook page and its 11,000+ followers and the nearly 1100 who follow on WordPress. I’ve appreciated all those who commented, and am grateful that for the most part, I’ve been free of “trolls.”

One of the pieces of counsel I came across early was not to pay attention to views or worry about audience and simply do the work:

• Post consistently
• Make an effort to write good material
• Engage with those who comment
• Post in groups appropriate to content and engage and always abide by group rules.

The audience has grown over the years from 3,281 in 2013 to 102,054 in 2015, my first year over 100,000 views, to 223,837 in 2020. This year looks on track to reach 275,000 to 280,000 views. The highest single day I’ve had on the blog was 8196 views on December 27, 2015 , a list of the Top Ten Youngstown posts for that year. It was my all time leading post at over 20,000 views, again, pretty modest by most standards.

I write six posts a week, and that nearly daily routine keeps me sharp, and hopefully over the years, has made me a better writer. I admit that it has been a constant learning curve on everything from grammar to understanding SEO. I’ve also learned that a rich archive of posts is like savings in the bank that keep yielding dividends. On many days, old posts account for 50 to 75 percent of the traffic.

As for the future? One never knows, but I have to admit that I still enjoy the writing and all the interactions on the blog, so, Lord willing I’ll be around to write again when I reach the two million mark, which I could reach in a bit less than four years at the current pace.

I also have to say thanks to the team at WordPress, which hosts this site. They have been helpful on a number of occasions when I’ve run into technical problems beyond my expertise.

Above all, I appreciate you, whoever is reading this. I wondered when I started out on this in August of 2013 whether anyone would read what I wrote. I still am amazed when someone tells me they bought a book because of a review, or liked one of my Youngstown stories. I’m both humbled and grateful!