Reader Meet Author

It’s July, and that means two things for me: Independence Day and anniversaries. I’ve already got some New Castle in the fridge to help celebrate the first one. Springfield puts on a fireworks display that I can usually see from my apartment. And after a moment of silence to give thanks for everything America (and those who serve or have served Her) have given me, it’ll be time to eat, drink, and watch chemical reactions in the sky.

If you’re reading this, you’ve already discovered how I’m celebrating the second of my July special events.

It really is hard for me to convey to other people the personal magnitude of this month and it’s significance for me. I’ve tried to explain why the existence of Reader Meet Author two years later is such a big deal. I started this little blog to explore my own nature and that of humans in general. Two years ago I jumped on the growing blog bandwagon and decided to see what would come of it. I really didn’t know if writing a blog would do anything for me. And if it did anything for me, would anyone else even bother reading? At the time I wasn’t so sure. It didn’t take me long to see that writing online did do something for me (I called it a web log back then…haha). Judging from the amount of feedback and email I get, I think it does something for other people as well. It’s not always what I expect (I’ve received more than a few “you’re an idiot” emails over the years). And even if no one ever reads a word of this again, I’ll still be pleased with what it’s become.

I can now officially use the phrase “over the years” to describe Reader Meet Author. One of the things that writing this blog has taught me about myself is that I really do have the staying power required to keep a project going. It’s very atypical of me. I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m easily bored and lose interest in things quickly. I’ve even slacked a few months with Reader Meet Author (you can see this visually now with the new “clouds” feature in the archive section). But after all of the slacking is done, RMA is still alive and kicking. Maybe it’s not a big deal to the casual passer-by. But to me (and the people who know me) it is.

In the spirit of anniversaries (and for future archival purposes), I’m going to take a quick trip down memory lane and explore where I’ve been… where I’ve gone… and how I got here today.

In The Beginning (Visit the Original Reader Meet Author)

Blogging was already in full swing in many quadrants of the net back in 2004. While they weren’t quite as common as they are today, folks were starting to catch on and blogs were popping up everywhere. I had just had my first short story published in a book of shorts a few months prior and was looking around the web for more ways to get “the word” out. While reading an article on getting published, I stumbled across a link about blogging and how it was going to revolutionize how people wrote and communicated. The best way to get into blogging, according to this article, was to sign up for a free blog at one of the blog hosting sites that made it as easy as writing a document in Word.

So that’s what I did. I signed up for an account at Blogger in July 2004 and Reader Meet Author was born. The first post I wrote only survived a few days before I deleted it and started over. My start over post was also deleted a few days later. Both posts have actually been recovered over at Blogger… so they’re readable there. I couldn’t find my groove. I wrote a post about music downloading that I almost deleted… until someone emailed me about it. I hadn’t been blogging for two weeks and already I was getting feedback. I decided to leave that post even after I changed gears a little and decided to explore my passion for human nature.

I stayed at Blogger until November 2005. By that time I’d found my niche and was receiving several hundred hits a month (which was a lot to me). I’d also started to become frustrated with the limitations of Blogger’s software. Don’t get me wrong… Blogger is a great tool. It makes writing and getting your voice heard easier than anything else I’ve seen to date. But I was starting to have the urge to branch out and expand RMA outside of the box of what Blogger was capable of.

One Year Anniversary Post (in original format at Blogger)

Expanding Possibilities (Visit Reader Meet Author v.2)

After some research (and more than a few posts to numerous discussion forums), I found what I was looking for: WordPress. WordPress offered the flexibility, power, and configurability that I was looking for. The only problem was that you had to have a server to run it. I didn’t have a server. A friend pointed me to WordPress.com, which offered free, hosted installations of WordPress on an invitation only basis. I needed an invite. To be honest, I don’t remember exactly how I got one. I actually think I used some trickery to make WordPress.com think I was a beta tester or something. However it happened, I got my account and started the task of moving from Blogger.

Moving was a pain in the ass (literally, considering how much time I spend sitting at the computer). There was no import feature at the time, so I had to move every post over by hand. Copy… paste… copy… paste. I lost all of the comments people had left at Blogger (I couldn’t copy and paste all of their info). To make things worse, I had to manually edit all of the timestamps at WordPress.com to make things flow and get the archives right. Otherwise, every post I copied over would look as though it was posted on the same day. It took a couple of days, but I finally got myself moved over to WordPress.com.

Moving Post at Blogger | Open For Business at WordPress.com

WordPress.com allowed me to create pages for more content and categories to make organizing posts much simpler. I didn’t actually use the categories at first (I didn’t know how they worked). I think I originally had five of them (Human Nature, Personal, Advice, Rants, Misc). There are now 17 of them… and they continue to grow as I try to branch out and focus at the same time. I was able to use pages to house some non-word related stuff and to further organize the growing number of posts into a Topics page. I also started to link to a few other blogs… something I’d never done at Blogger.

Reader Meet Author really took off at WordPress.com. After a few months my hit count went from a couple hundred a month to a couple hundred a week. Not too shabby for a personal blog if I do say so myself. The new RMA also started getting indexed out the ass by Google (and eventually several other search engines) and folks started stumbling across my corner of the web while searching for everything from Prozac to “laundry room lesbians”. RMA showed up on several blog collection websites as “Blog of the Day” and in one online magazine (which ironically no longer exists… haha). And while the number of comments only slightly increased, the number of emails I received really went up. I guess folks just don’t like commenting for some reason.

100th Post at WordPress.com

Today & The Future

The last two years have been fun. I’ve discovered more about myself than I’d ever imagined was possible when I started this little venture. I’ve spent countless hours reading back over what I’ve written in the past to see how I’ve grown or changed (or not changed). I’ve made new friends out there in cyberspace. And I’ve learned a lot from the people who chose to respond in some way to what they see here. Even though I again lost all of the comments people have left with this move, they’re still safely stored at WordPress.com. I’ve even considered using Reader Meet Author as the basis for a future thesis or dissertation in the graduate program I’ll some day enter into. The possibilities are really endless.

Today Reader Meet Author takes another step forward with the opening of this new and improved site. Yeah… I treated myself to a hosting service and a full-featured installation of WordPress to allow myself ultimate control and expandability. It sounds a little cheesy, but I’ve got so much from this blog that I figured it was time to give something back to it (come on… it’s my baby… haha).

What does the future hold? Who can say. But I know it’ll be just as fun and educational as the past two years have been. I just cracked into my stash of New Castle… and here’s to another year…

What’s New At Reader Meet Author

Thanks & Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read some of the long-winded things I write here. I know I’m a little wordy at times. Thanks for sticking with me. Haha.

In particular I want to thank:

• Mandy: My sister and longest-time regular reader. Thanks for the advice and support! Love ya! At least one of my siblings reads without having to be reminded… haha. (:P Scott)
• Dagny: Even though a misunderstanding turned her away from reading, I still couldn’t have made it through the early days of blogging without her continued commenting (it really encouraged me to continue writing). Thanks and, again, I’m sincerely sorry for any insult I might have given you.
• Melissa: Another long-time reader and frequent commenter. Thanks for sharing! When are you going to get your own blog so I can return the favor? Haha.
• Fellow Bloggers MDX, Richard, and Amateur-ish: Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me (even when it’s purely in a harassing sense, Richard). And thanks for the linkage!
• My Friends: Ya’ll don’t always post comments, but I know you’re reading (stats tracking is a bitch when you’re trying to be sneaky… haha).

And last but not least, I can’t forget the folks who make the presentation of this blog possible: Blogger, WordPress, Durable, and the plugin authors. I’ve always been interested in technology… but I can’t make it myself. Thanks for giving us all the ability to get our thoughts out and in the open for all to see!

Ok… now dry your eyes… and get back to your life. Come on… you’ve spent enough time reading this windbag post. You do have something else to be doing, don’t you….