The Sunday Sermon: So have these sermons worked?

        
    

Well right back on the 4th of December I wrote my very first Sunday Sermon. It had a purpose as an article, a mission if you will. It was a simple I guess, to see if Sunday's were jut slow days in terms of hits. As a secondary objective I decided to see if I could use these articles to generate more hits on my Blog overall. So has the experiment been a success. Well yes it has. I have increased my average Sunday 'hits' up from an average of 589 hits to 1214 hits. That's a pretty big leap if you ask me. The articles have also proved to be some of my more popular as well over recent months, which is gratifying as I've put a bit of thought into them. They've provided me with a sort of platform for some of my more mischievous tendencies as well as some of my more impassioned pleas, they've been fun to write as I've used them as a way to 'cut loose', so they have generated lots of debate and generally livened things up around here. So is it all slaps on the back and self congratulations then?

No, no it is not! You see I wanted to bring my hits per Sunday back in line with my hits I get on my blog during the rest of week. It seems those too have increased recently from an average of between 1000 to 1500 hits per day to something more akin to 1500 to 2000 hits per day. It seems that my blog is just getting 'more' popular across the board and that the increase in Sunday traffic could be just part of a wider trend. Bugger! You see Sundays are still by a clear margin my least popular day in terms of actual hits, this despite the gap narrowing considerably. Rapidly followed by Saturday I might add. It seems to me that you lot out there in the real world have 'actual stuff' to do on these things we call 'weekends'. Things that are more interesting any way than reading my blog it would seem... hmm... I'm not sure I like that.

Thing is that's no real surprise as I too tend not to read blogs as much on the weekend, as believe it or not I also have more important things to do, normally mowing the lawn or doing the washing up... I do have a life, honest! So I can hardly blame you lot for doing likewise now can I? As a percentage though my Sunday hits has closed in slightly on the hits I receive for the rest of the week. They're also quite stable now, so no wild fluctuations and there appears to be far less variance or deviation from the mean average 'Sunday hits' as it were. Whereas other week days there is a far wider variance. It seems having a regular weekly spot for a certain type of article has had a stabilising effect on my Blogs hits. This is something I am personally keen to explore a little bit further if I'm honest with you. So I'm currently looking to draw up a few more regular article series' to try and give my blog a bit more structure and shape. Hopefully these articles will interest all you lot and will prove as popular as my Sunday Sermons have, although hopefully for different reasons. Here's a list of the sorts of articles I'll be adding to my roster over the coming weeks and months:


Tales from the Frontline - These will be battle reports on the games I play and will appear on Saturdays. Yeah OK so partly it's a thinly veiled attempt to try and get a similar sort of uplift in hits for Saturdays as I have received for my Sundays. Hopefully it'll also give stability for my Saturday viewing figures that my Sermons have achieved for Sundays, and also give you all a reason to tune in on Saturdays as well. However, it's also an attempt to get me playing more games. I figure if I know every week I have to do a battle report then I'd better be playing at least one game a week. It'll also motivate me to paint my miniatures and get my gaming boards and scenery finally finished, as if I start putting up battle reports with half painted figures and dodgy looking boards you'll all rightly mock me. I don't like public humiliation, so it'll be a strong motivator for me to get my hobby to where I want it to be!

Frontline Painter - Linked I guess with the former article, because if I'm doing battle reports my miniatures better look presentable. These will go live on Friday's, yeah I'm trying to 'shut out' your weekends entertainment for you! The idea here is to try and keep me honest in regards to my New Years Resolutions, in particular the painting one, which has actually slipped, although I am ticking over in the painting department it is positively glacial! It's also that I want to do more painting. Plus I want to get much, much better at it. I've let myself get out of practice over the last few months / years. Ironically while I have been unemployed I should have had more than enough spare time to paint stuff, but every waking moment seems to be devoted to finding work, or taking a break from finding work by writing this Blog! I guess this Blog has started to take over my hobby time, hence last Sunday's Sermon. Trying to find a new job is still priority number 1 and all consuming. So if I know I need to put a painting / modelling article up most Friday I'm hoping I'll get my ass in gear and do it and it'll act as a motivator! I'm currently thinking this should be bi-weekly... but we'll see once I start writing them I guess.

Frontline Workshop -These probably won't be as frequent as my Frontline Painter articles. They will be about wider hobbying stuff like the odd sculpting task, or scenery building etc. The skills that have been lost to many of us hobbyists over the decades of pre-made plastic buildings and resin bases. Skills few of us exercise now, myself included. So it should be fun I guess. I'll probably make a right pigs ear of everything, but hey I enjoy making a mess and using power tools so it'll be a win win for me! These will more often than not replace any Frontline Painter articles and also go live on Fridays, because there's not enough material or time in the day for me to do both.

A sneak peak at some of the scenery I've been working on...

Industry talk - Well over the past year I've met and spoken to many people who work in the industry and had good long chats about many interesting things. Things that have sparked new ideas in me and got me writing articles that interest you. So I started thinking, what would happen if I actually kept a record of these conversations and turned them into interviews all you lot could read? Well there were two experiments, the first was the interview with Steve from Sarissa Precision... who knew two blokes talking about burnt MDF would prove so fascinating? The second was the interview with Rob Lane from BaneLegions, and that too proved insanely popular with you guys. So I decided it was possibly a good idea to get a crack on and do some interviews on a more regular basis. I have many in the works right now and I think my aim is to perhaps do one a month, or maybe fortnightly, who knows, and who knows how many of these people I annoy I can convince to actually do interviews. But I'll be giving it a blast. If you work for a company and would be willing to be interviewed then you can email me here:

TheFrontlineGamerBlog@Gmail.com

Macavity Ponders - Yep, the ginger Maine Coon is back with a vengeance. The most requests I get for articles on my blog are things that have been written by my cats. The articles Macavitry did around Christmas 2011 also proved annoyingly popular, in some cases more so than the stuff I actually write (stupid bloody cat). So you're going to get more of them. I warn you though, they might not all be wargames or hobby related. Macavity is a cat and I can't be held responsible for the weird crap that goes on inside his twisted little ginger head! However, Maccavity informs me he is a 'ver busy kat' and can only make an appearance once a month... most likely the first Monday of every month, so you've been warned!

Macca doing some research for his articles.

Diary of a research cat: Study of a human hobbyist - So as not to be outdone by the ginger cat Tybalt has informed me he'd like to keep a diary of a social experiment he is conducting. I thought it sounded interesting and rather fun... until I read the title. I'm no longer certain it sounds like such a great idea. However, a deal is a deal and I can't go back on the agreement now. Tying Tybs down to a regular spot has proved troublesome. He tells me he'll write stuff as and when he wants and if I don't like it then tough. He said he'll only share interesting observations with his readers, and that apparently his subject isn;t always interesting... again I'm not so sure I like the sound of that. Hopefully you'll enjoy his social experiment.

Tybalt stops me looking at his 'research data'.

So there you have it. I'm trying to bring a bit more structure into my blogging as I've just celebrated my first year anniversary, and move into my second year. Yep, as this Blog is one year old now and I've reached my major personal milestone that I set myself of blogging for an entire year (and still enjoying it) I need to set new targets to keep me occupied with it and hopefully you guys entertained by it. I'll still be popping up with opinion pieces as and when the urge takes me, don't you worry about that. I'll also continue to do my reviews of product and maybe themed weeks, as I have some of those planned already. I'll continue to search out new and exciting games too, not for you lot you understand, no purely for my own self gratification and entertainment, it's just an added bonus you guys seem to like it too. I'll just let you know what 'intrigues' me as and when it crops up! So that's it for now I guess. It's been a bit of a strange Sunday Sermon all things considered I guess. Hopefully not too many of you switched off, I'll start bringing the changes in gradually though so there won't be wholesale change here anytime soon. Let me know what you guys think of my plans. Peace out!