Why I Love Reader Feedback

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 4:52 AM

Lately, I've been getting some really cool e-mails from readers letting me know how much my stories are appreciated, which has felt really good. I like to find out the impact my work has had on others and what has worked or not worked for them.

I also sometimes end up learning something I was completely unaware of.

For example, the most recent e-mail I received mentioned that the reader had Googled "lesbian fiction." They went on to say how they'd clicked on the first link, didn't find anything of interest, went back to the search results page and clicked on the next link, which happened to be my site. I went on to read the rest of the e-mail, which was awesome, but by the time I was done reading, it finally dawned on me what the person had said. So, I went to Google and typed in "lesbian fiction" for myself to see what Google spat out.

And holy shit! ... I'm #2 on the list... for the keywords "lesbian fiction"... out of 1,360,000 possible results. I don't even know how that's possible or how long it's been like that. I don't advertise, and my site has basically been defunct for the past few years, despite my work to update the site and get chapters finished.

I also checked Bing, Yahoo!, and AltaVista, and kodiwolf.com is #7 on the first page of each of those, and is #9 on Ask and Dogpile (which appears to compile from Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask).

I'm completely blown away.

I also checked the hit stats for my domain and the numbers have been steadily increasing by several hundred every few months. In January 2010, I had 1,953 unique visitors. It dipped down to 1,890 in April, but last month (December), it peaked at 4,473. And judging by the number of visitors I've had for just the first week of January 2011, multiplied by 4, it looks like I might top 5,000.

People pay thousands of dollars to get on the first page of Google and other search engines and it's just happened to me, and I have no idea how. The only conclusion I've been able to come to is that people are advertising for me by telling their friends about my stories.

So, I'd just like to thank everyone who's been visiting the site and reading my stories and telling others about them.

I'm really sick with bronchitis (caught it over the holidays), but this has completely made my day. This feels amazing.

Thank you.

Assassin Revised

Monday, January 17, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 1:48 AM

I've finally posted the revised (and hopefully final) version of Assassin, all 34 chapters of it.

Over the years, I've made a ton of little edits that I never kept track of and which never made it into the HTML files, but this weekend my wife was kind enough to recode the entire story from my master file (the one used to create the PDF E-book), so now I don't have to worry about the Web version not matching up with the PDF version I intend to offer.

The revisions aren't anything major, mostly just changes in word choice, adding/subtracting commas, that sort of thing, so if you've already read it, you won't find any startling new revelations by reading it again, but hopefully the text flows a little better at the very least.

In other news, I've been working hard on getting the site ready for business. Lots of coding and figuring out how things are going to work.

In between that and being really sick (bronchitis is a bitch), I've also been researching for The Trine (reading about viruses) and trying to get revisions done for The Vampire Hunter (I got a couple new scenes partially written).

But right now, I need to crash, so I'm off to bed.

Making Progress On The Site

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 2:51 PM

My wife took off Friday the 11th (my birthday; I'm 35 now) and Monday the 14th (Valentine's) to give us a 4-day weekend together, and as her gift to me, she offered to help me work on the site, so that's what we did.

We got quite a bit done and most of what's left has to do with the BetaWolf sections I'm creating for each story (they won't be publicly available; only members of BetaWolf will be able to access them). Part of me wants to say "fuck it" and go ahead and open the site already, but putting my stories through the process of being beta-read is how I eventually get to the point where I feel confident enough to post new material for everyone to read. So, even though it's not necessary to have those areas completed in order to let people access the rest of the site, without those areas up and working, it's going to be that much longer before I have anything new to post, so I've ultimately decided to wait.

But I wanted to let everyone know that's what I'm working on. Of course, it would go a lot faster if my notes were at all organized, but they're not, so I also have to go through everything and try to make it intelligible. It's something I've needed to do anyway, so I'm glad to be sorting through it all. The problem is that looking at my notes inspires me to want to actually work on those parts of the story, but that won't get the organizing work done, so it ends up being a little tedious.

Well, back to the grindstone. :)

More Progress On The Site

Monday, March 21, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 8:23 PM

The site is getting really close to being ready. The BetaWolf pages are basically in place, so now I've moved on to the areas I've been putting off, most of which include the bits of the membership software that I haven't looked over yet simply because they haven't come up during my basic testing. But I need to make sure the whole system is working properly before I start accepting memberships. I also need to set up PayPal and make sure that works.

So basically, I'm down to the final detail stuff. Unfortunately, I'm really tired of slogging through all the text and code and would really just like to get back to writing. But I'm afraid if I don't buckle down, it's going to be a while before I get back to working on the site and I really want it done.

But maybe a break would do me some good, let me come back with a fresh attitude (since the one I have right now isn't exactly positive).

I just feel really drained. I've been working on this from sunup to sundown for days. I mean it's one thing when I'm crafting my stories and agonizing over every word. At least when that's done, I have a story I can read and enjoy. But this stuff... When I finish with a page, I pretty much never want to see it again. It's just so bloody boring. I mean I know the information is important, but at a certain point, my eyes start to lose focus and my brain zones out.

Okay, I think I'm going to go watch some TV. I just need to not think about the site for a little while.

I'm Drugged

Friday, May 6, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 4:11 PM

Just wanted to explain why nothing new has been posted to the site in the past month. I hurt my back. I'm not sure how, but sitting at the computer definitely aggravates it, so my doctor has basically ordered me to stay off the computer and lay down and use ice packs (actually, he always advocates that, but this time I've decided to actually listen to him because it hurts enough that I can't ignore it this time). Whatever I did has aggravated several of my trigger points in my neck, my low back, and under my right shoulder blade, which have all knotted up and cause pain whenever I try to use my right arm (like on the mouse or typing right now) or just sitting up for more than a few minutes. I'm on pain killers and muscle relaxants, which help, but both of those end up making me sleep a lot and when I am awake, I'm pretty much a zombie.

I have no idea how much longer this is going to go on, but I'm trying to rest so it will hopefully heal soon. So instead of writing or working on the site, I'm using my awake time to watch documentaries streamed through Netflix and jotting down notes every now and then. I've found a lot of really interesting stuff, so my brain is getting a little bit of a workout, though I tend to doze off, so I end up watching the same documentary three or four times before finally getting to the end. I've also found a lot of crap, so sometimes I sit through an hour and a half and don't even take a single note. I'm still trying to figure out why so many documentaries take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to put across a few facts or ideas that probably could've been stated in less than 5 minutes and with more clarity if they had been.

On the upside, I'm also catching up on a bunch of TV shows I've been wanting to watch that have been in my Netflix queue for what seems like forever (La Femme Nikita, Supernatural, Medium, Dollhouse, Bionic Woman (the original version), Commander in Chief, Battlestar Galactica (the new version), Heroes). Normally, I don't spend a lot of time watching TV. I prefer to be a little more interactive with my entertainment, hence my preference for computer games (which now that I think about it, probably didn't help my back much either). Plus, my wife and I cut our cable down to the basics a while back (just broadcast stations and the state news station in case of a local emergency) in order to save money, so neither of us has watched regular TV in quite a long time, just movies on DVD from Netflix every few days. But I've actually quite enjoyed watching those shows, letting them take my mind off the pain and knowing if I fall asleep, I can just start them over (either on DVD or streaming). So my forced convalescence hasn't been all bad. Technology is good. :)

But hopefully, my back will calm down soon and I can get off the drugs and get back to work on the site and my stories. For now though, I really need to go lay down again. I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on. Take care.

More Kidney Stones

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:16 PM

I just passed what is hopefully my last kidney stone for a while (at least the last CT scan didn't show any more in my kidneys waiting to be passed at a later date like the previous two scans did).

For those of you who have never seen or passed a kidney stone, this is what they look like (and why they hurt so much as they move through the tiny tubes of the ureters and urethra):

As you can see, they're like little quartz crystal geodes turned inside out with little crystal spikes all over their surface. For me, passing a kidney stone feels like I've been stabbed in the back and then the knife is slowly twisted in place for several hours at a time. It has to be the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. My normal blood pressure is around 120/85, but for the stone I passed in June, it was around 165/110. That's how stressed my body was from just being in that much pain for several hours.

Anyway, I'm just glad it's over. At least now I can stop taking that particular set of drugs, though I'm still on the pain meds and muscle relaxants for my back and neck, which make me dizzy and sleep all day, not to mention a little stupid. However, in the few hours of relative clarity I've had every few days, I've gotten the site a little closer to being done. I'm pushing really hard to have the site open by the end of the month, but since I'm not supposed to spend more than a few minutes at a time at the computer, I might be deluding myself.

But here's hoping anyway. :)

Technical Difficulties

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 8:27 AM

I'm in troubleshooting hell. If everything had worked right the first time (or even the second or third), the site would have opened yesterday. Instead, I've run into several issues that are going to take a while for me to fix. As in, I don't think the site will be going live until at least October.

I'm seriously annoyed at this, but I've resigned myself to the situation, so I'm trying not to totally freak out about it (patience is not one of my virtues; once I've made a decision, I prefer to act on it rather than sit around and feel like I'm in limbo).

So, it's going to be a little while longer, while I sort out the mess.

Sorry for the delay (again).

The Details

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:09 PM

I didn't want to post the details about what my technical difficulties were (or rather my solution to them) on the off chance my hosting provider (AssortedInternet.com) ended up reading this and decided to pull the plug before I was ready, but that's not a problem now, so here's what was going on.

Basically, I had to switch hosting providers because my old host kept changing stuff on the server, making my site break without notice. This was causing me to spend days on troubleshooting, only to figure out after much hair-pulling that it was something they'd done and not a glitch in one of my scripts or my code. With those kinds of problems happening several times a month, my progress on the site was pretty much brought to a standstill. After they refused to fix what they'd done the last time, I finally decided to move.

Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. I had to do a ton of research to find a new host that I was confident wouldn't screw me the way my old host had. Through that research I also came to the conclusion I needed to not only move to a better host, but also upgrade from shared hosting (many domains hosted on a single server) to either a dedicated server (one domain on one server) or a virtual private server (VPS; one server partitioned to act like many smaller servers with one domain to a partition).

Since I was paying a measly $7/month for the shared hosting and dedicated servers start at $200/month, I decided to go with the more reasonable $50/month upgrade to a VPS. And I chose HostGator.com as my new hosting provider, mostly because they're the cheapest and have an amazing support base (24/7 live chat, e-mail, forums, and tech articles, all from mostly native English speakers). Since I've only been with them for a few weeks, I can't really give a long-term review, but so far, they've done everything they said they would and have answered my many questions (sometimes not as thoroughly as I'd like, but if I keep digging, I get the info I need).

Having my own server (even a virtual one) is very new for me, but the support techs have definitely helped and I seem to be muddling through all right (at least the hacking attempts have lessened).

So, I'm slowly getting back on track. In fact, I recently tested PayPal (that was the last thing Assorted broke and refused to fix) and it's working great now. Next on the list is to do a live test (I've only tested in PayPal Sandbox so far) and to get BetaWolf up and running. They don't know it yet, but they're going to be my beta-testers for using the site, since they'll have to go through the membership signup process and fill out forms, etc.

Hopefully, if all that goes well, I'll be able to finally open the site and get back to just writing. Though I know that first month or two I'm probably going to be inundated with e-mails from people wanting help with one thing or another, so it'll probably be a month or two after that before I finally get back into the swing of things.

So that's what's been going on for the past two months (longer if you count the months of troubleshooting before that because of Assorted's nonsense).

Well, back to work. :)