International Visitors

It's been about a year since I 'discovered' the STATS tab on my blog. I love keeping track of who visits.

Now, don't get all freaky-deaky on me. I don't know who you are or how you managed to find me or my blog . . . well, other than it's usually from a generic page like Facebook or Google, or from keywords (in combinations that make absolutely NO sense at all!), but most of them seem to be from my Friday food blog.

But I do LOVE that I can keep track of the countries who visit. This blog gets global visitors from all sorts of countries. This last week, other than the US, the most visitors have come from Canada, Russia, China, UK, and Germany, with smaller hits from Sweden, Brazil, Japan and France.

Blogger will only record the top ten locations, which means I have hits from other countries, but in smaller amounts--and not usually on a regular basis. And the only reason I know this, is because I look at the daily log. I've had hits from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Thailand, So. Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Turkey, Israel, Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Australia, etc., and just recently Brazil, and today, Peru and Argentina.

And I'm not too proud to admit that I've had to look up a few of the countries to see exactly where they are located.

Sometimes my stats will spike and I'll get 20-40 visits from a particular country. Again, no clue why, except it must be from certain key words that triggered it.

On a good day, I'll have 120-140 visits, but on a slow day, it seems to be around 50. If most people are like me, then you're too busy to visit daily, instead you come once or twice a week and read a couple blogs at a time.

In fact, in my 'normal' life, I'm fascinated by people from different countries. If I can't visit those countries, then I'd love to live vicariously through your stories.  Recently I met a man and his daughter during my daughter's swim practice from Brazil. Joshua came to this country 19 years ago to be a chef in Boston. How he ended up in Oklahoma was through ORU. And here's the fun twist--he met and married another Brazilian! Too fun! He and his family like it here, but visit Brazil every three years. We talked about swimming and he said he used to swim in the piranha infested waters of the Amazon--HOW COOL IS THAT?! We talked about many other things during the remaining 30 minutes of his daughter's lesson.

 I really felt enriched from this encounter.

I also talked to a little boy, nope I don't know his name . . . yet. His family is from Asia. I don't know where because his mom is far more shy than he is! He saw me crocheting and kept sliding closer and closer to watch, and we started talking. Usually, his mom and a few of their friends stay in their group talking in their native language--if I had to guess, I'd say Chinese, but I've been wrong before! and it could be one of hundreds of dialects--and they don't socialize, which I find sad. I don't know if it's because they weren't made welcome or they are simply uncomfortable with their language skills.

But trust me--virtually every non-American that I've met over the many years of my life has a better grasp of the English language than 75% of the population! Don't sweat it and come talk to me.

Most of the other Oklahomans chat in their little cliques, and I'm not included. But that's okay, I've always belonged to a clique of one--ME.

Cliques are over-rated because they look inward and tend to miss the wonderful stuff that is happening around us in this world. And the world is moving at such a quick pace due to the Internet, so that it is easy to be left behind.

But please keep visiting. I'd love to hear from you.

Let's start a conversation about what brought you to my little blog---because I'm running out of things to blog about!

Later, Peeps!

I won this book/ blogs

And yes, Lois did answer my email. I wasn't too late. YAY!

I read many different blogs every day, and I have to say the ones that keep me coming back provide variety. I like blogs that talk about writing in some form or another, but I HATE it when you have a group blog and someone posts a chapter of her 'novel'. I NEVER read those posts. It takes too much time that I'd rather not waste.

I also don't like blogs that are too long. Unless the topic is very interesting, I grow bored very easily and quit reading. I have to say that Editorrent, Writer Unboxed and Murderati tend to fall in this category. But there are a few posters on those loops that I will read, because they are interesting, the topic is interesting or it just hit the right note with me.

I go to CakeWrecks because it makes me laugh.

Editor Anonymous recently had numerous blogs that explained the publishing side of the biz. Kristin Nelson's blog is short and sweet, and yes, she does plug her author's books, but I like her blog and Nathan Bransford provides insight to the agency side of the biz, plus he keeps up with his query stack. I know, he's rejected me within 24 hours.

Those are a few of the blogs I visit daily. But I've won three prizes (two books and a necklace) this year for commenting on various blogs. Last year, I won two books (Karin Tabke's Master of Surrender, and one of Rocki St. Claire's Bullet Catchers)Authors tend to blog visit when they have a new release. They'll be featured in a variety of blogs and most of them will give away a copy of the book being released. This gives them exposure to blog reader that they might not have been in touch with and other potential readers.

--Just don't give away an autographed copy of the cover plate or bookmark. PLEASE! Yes, some authors think this is good enough--it isn't. Who keeps those things?? Not me. I've tossed more bookmarks and cover plates than I care to admit. The books that were given away (even the backlist books are better than cover plates!) get read and passed around.

If you have a pending release purchase some extra books and give them away on blogs. You'll get new readers and great exposure!

Write on!