The Future of the Reading Life-Reflections on my third Blogiversary

Future Plans and Hopes for The Reading Life

on turning three

My Blog Turns Three Today

In our family we often talk about how old cats are in human years.   Based on my informal observations, I would say that three years is getting up there for a book blog, the oldest ones I have ever seen were eight.   People either get bored, they get too busy with other things in their life or they somehow feel they are writing for no one and they stop posting.   Last year, 15 book bloggers participated in Irish Short Story week. Now five of these blogs are either totally gone or have not posted anything in six months.    

"I am here permanently now"
Ruprecht

When I began my blog I would have personally have bet that the blog would not still be active in a year.   I would never have dreamed that I would in 2012  spend months posting on mostly Irish short stories or that world known authors would allow me to publish their short stories.   In truth I never would have even considered it possible for my blog to have the great quality and pretty good quantity of readership it does.   I do not know how many English Language book blogs there are now but it has to be in the several 1000s.   

Once there was a memo in a book blog event that asked book bloggers to say how many people in their real lives shared their passion for reading.   Some said lots of friends, some came from families where Dad had a passion for Dickens or Mom was a well known Yeats scholar, some had reading spouses or close friends who read but over one third of the people said no one.   That was my answer, no one.   The biggest thing my blog has done, and many other say the same thing, is to make me feel I am not alone in my love for reading.   Thanks to The Reading Life and the great international book blog community I know longer feel isolated in and by my love for reading.

Future of The Reading Life

"See you again March 1,2013"
Rory

I will continue my blog as long as my health permits it.  I might take a break from time to time but if it stops permanently I would ask that someone continue Irish Short Story Week as an annual event.   If March 1 comes and I have not begun to post about Irish Short Stories, then something is wrong.   

I follow my blog stats very closely.   In addition to the stats built into blogger, I use Sitemeter and StatCounter, of the two StatCounter is by far my favorite.   The top countries of my blog visitors are USA, India, Philippines, UK, and Canada.   The top cities of residence are Delhi, Manila,  New York City, London, Mumbai, Calcutta, and Los Angeles.   The top American states are California and Texas.   In a typical nine hour period (all I can see in StatCounter) I have visitors from about seventy countries.   

I will continue to post on short stories of the Philippines in partnership with Nancy C of A Simple Clock Work.

I will continue to post on Irish short stories and do what I can to spread the word about exciting new Irish writers.  

I  hope to post more short stories, from writers all over the world.

I may, still pondering it, have an Indonesian Short Story Week (year three) around the middle of August in observation of Indonesian Independence Day.

I will soon have a Mongolian short stories day (a great contact sent me links to some stories from the 1930s)

I will very soon start a permanent event on short stories of the Indian Subcontinent.

I will continue to read and post on Japanese novels and short stories.

I will be posting on more short stories and fewer longer works of fiction than in year one and two.   I still read classics, literary fiction, and nonfiction but I now have a very strong love for the short story.

I will post occasionally on brand new books also.   I have been given lots of free e-books which I greatly appreciate.  I cannot read or post on all of them.  If I have told you I will post on your book then I will but I need to be allowed to do this based on my schedule. 

"Stick with us please, I will
try to keep things being to dull"
Carmilla

  For now my priority is the Irish short story, our Filipino short story project, my coming event on short stories of the Indian region, post colonial Asian fictions, classics and modern fiction.   I also am discovering through the help of my contacts many new to me short story writers and I will share these  writers with  my readers.

I hope by Jul 7, 2013 to have 85,000 page views a month.   A lot of my visitors are what I call home work help seekers.  I can tell pretty much world wide what short stories are being taught in what cities now from my blog stats.   

In addition to or closely associated with my love of reading is my love of learning about history and the lives of other people.  In my reading life (spanning near six decades now)there has been many years in which I  read only history, biographies, philosophy and wisdom texts and non-fiction.   Only in the last ten years or so have I been avidly reading fiction.  I also read lots of collections of letters, diaries and journals.   I have learned a great deal from readers of my blog.  

If I am lucky enough to still be blogging in 2015 I hope The Reading Life has 150,000 readers a month, that I have discovered many  wonderful new to me writers and that I am blogging on things I never dreamed of doing.  

I hope many or really all of the writers I have featured and will in the future feature on The Irish Quarter (now a permanent event) are on their way to world fame.   


If you have any suggestions for improving my blog, please leave a comment.

Mel u