Three Years

It feels like I should do an anniversary post to feed my inner narcissist, but I'm not really sure what I should talk about. Making it to one year felt huge. It was the year I created something from nothing, so I focused on numbers. Two years showed sustainability, so I focused on process. Three years? I don't know what, if anything, it actually means.

Google says that traditionally, the third anniversary gift is leather. I like that. In modern times, it's crystal/glass. Meh, I'll stick with old school leather, thank you. However, I don't think that really helps me figure out what to write in a post to mark the occasion. So, in honor of three years, I'll just ramble a bit.

Aw, that's nice. Chris Cannon is offering up
his leather vest as an anniversary present.

I will admit that the blog was a bit more of a struggle at times this year. On the story front, I have a plan. I have a ton of stories started. I've got the narrative part down, but the action is coming slower. Thus, finishing them is happening much closer to publishing. Three of this year's stories so far have been finished within a week of posting. I'm hoping to get back on track as three of the next four were done and uploaded last year.

Mmm, more leather.

Deciding what to review has also gotten tougher. I haven't watched anything terrible in awhile, which sounds good, except for the fact that most matches fall into that middle ground of nice, but uninspiring. That's the worst thing for a reviewer. Excellent and terrible are much easier to post about.

Of course, loincloths are my favorite leather look.

I'm working to figure out other content I can create to break up the monotony. I liked a couple of my commentary posts, but I don't seem to have a ton to say at the moment. And the Holds posts require a surprising amount of effort. Valentine’s Day was a hit, but that doesn't seem like it's repeatable. If you have suggestions of things you'd like to see, the comment box is just below.

Leather doesn't have to be overdone ... Ethan's
one little wristlet sends a big message.

One of the more entertaining aspects of being around three years is how the emails I get have changed. This year, I realized that I've arrived when people started 'sharing' gossip about different groups to me. To what end, I'm not sure, but it seems like there are a few guys with negative ‘inside information’ that they feel like I should know. Don't ask for details, but it certainly seems like the behind-the-scenes drama I write about isn't so fictional.

Turns out not everyone gets along.
Just like my stories!

Results

These are a bit of a tradition. I know they're only interesting to a few, but for those folks, I'm posting them again. The blog was up 25% year-over-year from March-February. Slower growth than last year, but that's to be expected.

As usual, for individual posts, I'm doing Year Three as the 2017 calendar year to remove recency bias as much as possible. It takes about three months for the posts to reach a plateau where all posts grow at a similar rate barring an outside stimulus.

Story-wise, the results are all super-close this year. First year that this has happened, but no story broke out, while no story fell way behind, either. In fact, 13 of the stories are within just a couple of hundred views. Just since my year-end post, things have changed at the top, which doesn't surprise me given how close everything is.

Of note, Jae had a much better year compared to 2016. Two of his three stories really grabbed your attention. The top two stories were commissions, so thanks to readers for those ideas. New series generally ranked well. Camp Grapple had the biggest fall off from the first story to the second, while CLAW had the lowest average.

However, as I said, everything was really close, so it doesn't feel like anything was really a ton better than anything else.

Review results were a different story, no pun intended. There is a huge difference between post performance. For example, Scrappy vs. Blayne 1 earned a whopping 33% more views than the next closest competitor and was the biggest post of the year of any kind. And the top four reviews are very far ahead of #5.

While no wrestler is a guaranteed winner, you do see some repeat guys showing up. Blayne makes the top ten three times. Calvin Haynes/Steve Tanner ranks third and fourth. And Scrappy and Viking each make the list twice. Company-wise, five of the top ten reviews were about a Thunders match and four were about BGEast.

Other than that, I don't see a lot of patterns. There's the link factor from other sources, but mainly I think it's repeat viewing. Somehow, on these top ten, there's likely an image that some readers just want to see again (and again and again).

In terms of promotions, my opinions of the the new guys drew a lot of attention. Not surprising, I guess. Otherwise, things were similar to prior years with BGEast, Thunders and Wrestler4Hire getting a ton of views on average and the more focused players being more niche in their appeal to my readers.

So that's it. Thanks for hanging in with me for three years! Fingers crossed, year four will be productive for me and interesting for you!

Alex