Stalking the loyal reader...
I know what. you want...
(A grawlix)
The folks at Substack are great about giving me an all-you-can-eat-buffet of statistics about my 5 a.m. Stories, which turn five months old this week and are hurtling rapidly toward the 30,000 page view mark.
This week, without warning, they backed a dump truck onto my well-tended front yard and left piles of new data in green 30-gallon leaf bags.
“WTF are you going to do with all that crap?” my perturbed neighbors demanded to know, because their yards are also well-tended.
It was which much glee that I calculated my top six posts, in terms of reader visits. I expected to find enough info to understand exactly where my readers want to go next, so I can get out in front of them.
Alas, it wasn’t quite that simple. Here are the top six stories on my hit parade:
#6 Getting the Hell out of Dodge
#5 Pie in the Sky was the Icing on the Cake
#4 Santa Fe, a Town with Cachet
I gave the Algorithm of Fortune a spin, bought me some vowels, and waited for enlightenment. Here’s what I learned:
Getting the Hell out of Dodge was about China and the challenge of escaping in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. So, my readers want China, and maybe an Indiana Jones sort of vibe. I can do that. Indiana is my middle name. Really, it could be.
Pie in the Sky was the Icing on the Cake described me writing tender poems and songs for my son when he was very young. This suggests my readers are sweetly sentimental, and want wisdom to impart to their little ones. I get it.
Santa Fe, a Town with Cachet covered my eight years living in Santa Fe, a dusty cowboy town that technically is in the United States but doesn’t like to think too much about that. So, my readers want to get in touch with their inner rebel? Who the hell doesn’t?
Its the Grammar Police, Your Under Arrest is about serious English lovers who want to protect their mother tongue even if it means bringing in some gunslingers from Santa Fe to help. Yes, the headline errors were intentional.
Where Life’s a Holiday, my number two most popular - and occasionally number one - is about a street in Indianapolis, where I grew up. Primrose has its own weekly podcast, called The Primrose Chronicles, lovingly crafted by an old childhood friend. This is one tiny street with multi-platform fan clubs, and folks come 2,000 miles to read and hear about it. Can a blockbuster movie be far behind?
Finally, Uh-Oh, they got Lady Mondegreen, shot to first place in only 10 days. It’s about the exhilarating fun you can have with words, old and new. Who isn’t looking for fun?
This is perplexing. There wasn’t the roadmap I had expected, but I know exactly what to do with all this information. I’ve gone to an Artificial Intelligence shop in London, and told them I’m interested in words, children’s poetry and cities in the Midwest, Southwest and China.
It’s very expensive. I sure hope they take Japanese yen.
The AI studio has 14 people working on this full time, and they hope to have the perfect 5 a.m. Story ready for me a week from today. Stay tuned.
Liked them all! Like a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get!
Just remember, Indiana is not your middle name!