Stat!

While stat is from the Latin word “STATim”, which translates to “immediately,” many of us use stat when referencing a statistic, i.e., a blog post statistic, which I seldom pay attention to, until I slip in the ice and break my arm. Then, looking at stats is one way to pass the time while bones slowly heal.

My dear old friend Nancy Palmer would call that first paragraph “clearing your throat” and tell me to get rid of it. I would if I were writing a story or a novel. But this is just blathering on a blog, so what the heck. Besides, backspacing is hard to do one-handed.

And as my dear old aunt Louise would say, after a dramatic exhale of cigarette smoke:
Anyway!

In perusing my stats, I noticed that the 3rd most read post since I began the blog in 2010 is “Sock-sock-shoe-shoe? or sock-shoe-sock-shoe?,” with 1,600+ reads. 1st place, with 2,400+ reads, is “250 Word Synopsis,” and 2nd place is “Building a Small Cable Suspension Bridge,” with 2,100+ reads. No other post stats come close to these three.

1st and 2nd place make sense. One is writing advice with practical examples and a very searchable title, and the other touts a popular book my partner and I published about our suspension bridge. We won’t even talk about the stats on our Funny Farm blog, Wildcat Man (which I also write). That blog leaves mine in the dust in terms of popularity.

Anyway!

So, what’s up with the Sock Shoe story? It was written as a round-about way of promoting my new picture book, Bug!, talking about how there is more than one way to accomplish a task even if its not the most commonly used solution. Not exactly an exciting subject. All I can figure is the reference to one of the best TV shows in history, All in the Family, makes this post pop up on search engines. In fact, many of the stats for it are in recent years, even though I wrote it seven years ago.

So there you go! If you want to improve readership on your blog, just stick in a plug for All in the Family. See if it works for you! And I’ll be watching the stats for this post just to see if it works.

P.S. I do have a new picture book I should be promoting. It’s called Ee-Oh-Lay! What Do Birds Say? and can be ordered, free shipping, from the publisher.

See what I did there?