The TEK - November 2019 Stats

November 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 2
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 5
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 4
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4
Swashbucklers Character Class - 3

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,208
Google Analytics Sessions - 751
Pageviews per Session - 1.61


Pageviews were up by 29% over last month. That is cool.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were weak this month at 18 total. This month, I launched a new character sheet and really anticipated more downloads. Nope. I suspect that the main draw to this group of files is the age and nostalgia, so I missed with an update.

November is typically a rough month for me, but this time I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn't meet any of my goals for last month. I did add a lot of images and such, but not to every post. I did wordsmith a lot of them, but again, not all of them. To be honest, I was wordsmithing like 4,000 words every few days, so I'm sure I hit 50,000 words edited. I didn't do the tabs for podcasts or the blog roll. I did try it, but didn't like how it worked. The blog roll remains unchanged in format, while the podcasts got images. That was neat.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

October 2019

November 2019

December 2019

The Tek - October 2019 Stats

October 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 10
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 9
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9
Swashbucklers Character Class - 4

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 933
Google Analytics Sessions - 618
Pageviews per Session - 1.35


Stats are down this month by 9.5%. Why? Because I didn't post a lot in the first week of the month, and what I posted was Inktober materials which do not entirely match up with my readership on D&D.

Back in August, I set a goal of 750 Pageviews. Even going down 9.5%, I managed 933 page views. That makes me happy.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were stronger this month at 42 total. If I had a $10 product, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, I don't have a $10 product, so I can just be happy over one download a day.

At the end of this month, DriveThruRPG was under attack and my downloads didn't change much. That issue is seems resolved, but it was very fluid for a while. They did a good job protecting themselves (and me) as near as I can tell.

November is typically a rough month for me. If I can hold the line at 750 Pageview, I'll be happy.

New things you can expect this month:

• A tab for my favorite podcasts
• A tab for my blog roll
• All posts, past and present, will have images added to them
• All posts, past and present, will be reedited and wordsmithed to reduce errors. 

The last is my Rebellion for NaNoWriMo. Instead of cranking out 50,000 words for a novel of dubious quality, I plan to edit tens of thousands of words to improve my website.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

September 2019

October 2019

November 2019

The Tek - September 2019 Stats

September 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 5
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 5
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 7
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4
Swashbucklers Character Class - 17

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,098
Google Analytics Sessions - 740
Pageviews per Session - 1.48

Ok, this month I am no longer reporting Blogger stats as they are provably wrong. All of my Amazon Stats are 0, so I am giving them one more month before dumping the Amazon ads. I will still carry the "Most Favored Products" as that is possibly drumming up activity for other people.

EDIT - One more stat. I hope to get 750 Pageviews. I really got 1098, which is a 14% increase over last month. I am thrilled with that.

I haven't done stats for DrivethruRPG ads, but they totally cover my operating costs for a year. At $186 and change for a year's worth of referrals, it doesn't contribute much to my bottom line. Nor does sales on my products, which is about $23 a year. I've had 551 downloads over the same time period, so that works out to 4.1 cents per download. This is great considering I don't like to host my stuff.

Now, throwing it back on me. Can I come up with a perfect product that I can sell for a specific price? That is my intent by December 2019. If that pans out, I will probably rework many of my prior products, expand on them, and offer them for sale. The originals will still be PWYW, but going forward, I plan to create items of worth (even if lowly worth) and start selling instead of using the tip jar method of PWYW. I will never completely step away from PWYW, but I'd like to have some products with very high production quality. I feel like I am getting there, but still need to refine my work to get there.

Just so the reader is aware, I post on the last day of the month. This means that some stats are low by a few hours. I update them later as the final results are in. For example, in August I said I had 1003 page views. In reality it was 1006. That is too small of a difference to matter, but I updated it. These slight changes are not too offensive to me. The point of this data is so that other bloggers know where they might be in relation to something or other or me. Sometimes, you aren't as small time as you think, which is great to know.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

August 2019

September 2019

October 2019

The Tek - August 2019 Stats.

August 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 5
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 13
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 41
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9
Swashbucklers Character Class - 54

Webstats:
Blogger Pageviews - 5,638
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,006
Google Analytics Sessions - 649
Pageviews per Session - 1.55

Amazon Stats:
Seller Central - 1 sale
Amazon Affiliates - 0 clicks, 0 fees, 0 bounties
Audible: 0

I feel great about the Google Analytics numbers despite being less than a fifth of the Blogger numbers. In looking at what I did this month vs. other months, I believe that I have some insight into why the Blogger stats are so high.

I suspect that if something is a clickable element, say an ad or a picture, and someone views a page that contains those things, it will count both the post plus those elements. So one post with an ad and a picture counts as 3 page views.

My behavior this month has radically changed. First, I pulled in posts from 3 other blogs and made them live. There were 70 blog posts this month, an average of 2.25 per day. That is atypical for me and cannot be sustained. Also, I made myself post an image for every post. And finally, I added several new ads to the site. You can see the DriveThruRPG and Amazon ads down the right column, plus the Sponsor Ads tab for Audible and Amazon Prime. (If you can't see them, you have an ad blocker turned on, which is fine.) 5,593 pageviews as measured by Blogger in this context make sense. Analytics is also filtering a lot of garbage out, such as spam views.

So, what do I think I know? I think I can sustain a viewership of 500 sessions and 1.5 pageviews per session, so I think I can hit 750 pagesviews per month. So that is next month's goal.

I am now reviewing Amazon ad data. It might not be worth having any ads outside of DriveThruRPG.

UPDATE: On September 1st, I caught some data which might be enlightening. Analytics told me I had 30 pageviews across 9 different landing pages. Blogger said I had 60 views on ten different posts.

In looking at each post visited, I get the following numbers;

10 posts,

15 images,

38 ads or banners.

That's 63. Too many.

BUT when comparing landing pages to post views, I see that one post was in yesterday's data set according to Analytics. So, 63-4 is 59. But wait. There is one post that is a duplicate of an ad that appears on the right-hand side. +1 for 60!

I am now satisfied that blogger is counting every loadable element as a "pageview", while Analytics is counting the code where it appears, which is the post level. It doesn't add up entirely, but I am sure this is correct.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to add some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

August 2019

September 2019

Mid-Month Tek Report

In the middle of last month, I implemented Google Analytics. The news isn't surprising, but it ain't so good. I can see that I will fail to reach my goals in the middle of the month, which is even worse.

When you use Blogger, you can see your page views in the stats tab. Looking at that today, I have 3,867 pageviews. When I compare to Google Analytics, I have 480. That isn't so hot. But it isn't terribly surprising. Why are they so different?

No idea. I don't care, I just want useful data.

Google Analytics is a more sophisticated product, so I am running with their numbers as a guide to goals for a couple of good reasons.

First, I can see reader behavior. 480 pageviews can be converted to session, the activities that one person does when visiting. I can see people hopscotch through my site as they read. One of the things I am very happy about is that I can see drops, the point at which people stop reading my blog. When I run down this path, I can see that a tiny percentage of users hop through 11 pages per session. That speaks to the depth of interest by the reader. It's not everyone, but a small subset. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see that some people enjoy what I do to the 11 degree.

I had a goal of 3000 readers as of last month. I will not make that goal according to Analytics. So, let's change that. I wish to have 750 readers for August and maintain that 11 page reading cycle.

For the next few months, I will posting Blogger stats along side Analytics stats to get a feel of what is happening.

As always, I hope this information is useful to you and that you also enjoy the website.

Analytics Rots the Soul

Stepping behind
my own curtain

According to Google, I have about 2000 page views a month. My target is a modest 3000 views a month. These are not thousands of individual people, several thousand times that someone comes to the site to read something. Fair enough, I think is a good measure.

But what are they reading?

According to the stats, my readers aren't reading much about me. My top 5 posts, in order are:

Google Docs Templates for D&D
Book Review - A Brief Study of TSR Book Design
The 3 Toadstools and #tenmonstersetting
Module Review - BSOLO Ghost of Lion Castle
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - Update - We are live!

The first is about  Benjamin Connell’s 3.5 Character Sheet, which I love for my D&D campaigns. The second is a review of Kevin Crawford's history of D&D books, the typography, style and page layouts. This was extraordinary helpful for my self-published books. The 3 Toadstool post was about Shane Ward's excellent campaign icebreaker experiment, Chris Hall's expansion. The ideas totally invigorated my creativity to produce new content for my campaign and my books. Ghost of Lion Castle was a solo adventure by TSR, which was a favorite of mine on rainy days. The final post is all about my first book.

So what?

3000 page views a month is not much of a goal. But to get there, I have understand my audience. If my goal was to convert every reader to a book purchaser, I am a total failure.

But was that ever my goal? I've been doing this since 2012 but didn't write my first book until 2018. That book was born out of the frustration of dealing with an accident at work, not any desire to... you know... make money or gain fame.

I've posted links to my books and thrown up some ads to make the website pay for itself, which is working. I have DriveThruRPG hosting files to mostly free titles I have written (I hate file hosting myself) which is also working. But going forward, I mean to be a part of the gaming community. My purpose isn't to make money or gain fame, but to transmit great ideas to the larger community.

In the month of August, I am bring out two new titles, which are totally tangential to the These Old Games. I mean to update and bring back 52 Weeks of Magic, which is a highly enjoyable activity even though it doesn't generate webhits. But most of all, I mean to write about all the things that are happening in this community.

At some point, I became a service provider, a place to read about all of the wonderful ideas from across the web.  Its time to fully embrace that.

Wish me luck!

The Tek - July 2019 edition

As promised, here are the webstats and download stats for DriveThruRPG for the month of July. I have begun collecting data in Google Analytics, and if possible I will start proving that information in September, 2019 for August.

July 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 90
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 43
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9

Webstats July 2019 - 2294

June 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 48
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 8

Webstats June 2019 - 1380

May 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 6

Webstats May 2019 - 1965

April 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 2

Webstats May 2019 - 3011

March 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 1838

Febuary 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4

Webstats May 2019 - 1423

January 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 2792

Keep in mind, these are raw stats from the reports I have available. While the DriveThruRPG stats are rock solid, the webstats are coming from the report that Blogger provides. I am sure there is some crap in there that shouldn't be. I am working to refine these numbers by using Google Analytics going forward.

Books are not sales, they are downloads only. My sales rate for the lifetime of all products is an averaged 6.5% (as of today, 7.8%) of all downloads. This is owing to the fact that I offer PWYW and specifically told people not to pay for the character sheet or the Compass Rose Inn maps in the product description. It hurts sales, but I am 100% certain that the downloader got what they needed.

In the future, I plan to move away from the PWYW model for a lot of titles, but only once I feel confident that the production quality is high enough to support it. You can click the link in the upper left (THE TEK) for the latest update.

The Tek

Why 'o why?

When I was a kid, we lived near a pharmacy called The Tek. The store is long gone, I have no idea why it was called that, but it was great little shop with all kinds of books, medicine and tchotchkes for sale.

Like every normal parent on planet Earth, my parents didn't have enough for every wish and desire. But they did their damned best.

One day, my dad took me to The Tek for something and told me flat out, "I don't have any extra money to get you anything." When he picked up his script or whatever he was buying, he found me looking at a book called: What is Dungeons and Dragons by John Butterfield, Philip Parker and David Honigmann.

As I put it back on the shelf to leave, my dad said, "Oh, a book. I have money for a book. As long as you read it."

Fast forward 20, 30 maybe even 35 years, I remember that lesson. Knowledge is worth more than money. I spend time making sure my kids read, just as my parents did for me. When they couldn't read, I read for them. When they don't have time or money to read, I make sure I close those gaps so they can.

But reading isn't the point of this post. It's about THE TECH. Sometimes, I wonder where I stand in the whole scheme of things. I have no idea. Do I sell a lot of books? Don't know. Do a lot of people read my blog? What is "a lot"? No idea.

To that end, I have decided to post my web stats and copies download from DriveThruRPG stats. Why? Because information is power and perhaps you too are wonder where you are at. This isn't a bid for transparency, I love the fact that someone reads my stuff, simply for the joy of it.

So, here are the year to to date states for my site and books.

July 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 90
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 43
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9

Webstats July 2019 - 2294

June 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 48
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 8

Webstats June 2019 - 1380

May 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 6

Webstats May 2019 - 1965

April 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 2

Webstats May 2019 - 3011

March 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 1838

Febuary 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4

Webstats May 2019 - 1423

January 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 2792

Keep in mind, these are raw stats from the reports I have available. While the DriveThruRPG stats are rock solid, the webstats are coming from the report that Blogger provides. I am sure there is some crap in there that shouldn't be. I am working to refine these numbers by using Google Analytics going forward.

Books are not sales, they are downloads only. My sales rate for the lifetime of all products is an averaged 6.5% (as of today, 7.8%) of all downloads. This is owing to the fact that I offer PWYW and specifically told people not to pay for the character sheet or the Compass Rose Inn maps in the product description. It hurts sales, but I am 100% certain that the downloader got what they needed.

In the future, I plan to move away from the PWYW model for a lot of titles, but only once I feel confident that the production quality is high enough to support it. You can click the link in the upper left (THE TEK) for the latest update.