It has been a whole year since I first published my review of Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, which marked the beginning of the website as an actual place for content and reviews to be hosted.
However, as I have alluded to in other posts, this website has existed before in differing locations and versions. At first, it was going to be a simple Google Sites page that I periodically updated, but the manual effort involved in creating a whole new page for each post drove me insane, so then it was Blogger…
Starting Off
Working under the title of Novelistic, I published a lengthy review of Kawakami’s short novel on there. From memory, the review was within the realm of 1,100 words. It quickly dawned on me that no one, not even the most passionate of readers, were going to sift through my lengthy critique and analysis of each novel. Equally, I wasn’t sure how bothered I could be to hit the 1K quota for each review, so I went back to the drawing board to figure out what would be suitable for my visitors and myself.
Come June 2023, I suddenly started putting things in order, and realised I would probably have to pay for some decent hosting if I wanted any attention, and especially if I ever dreamed of some revenue from my efforts.
Long story short: I bought a two-year WordPress hosting plan, fumbled around with the editor to make a basic site. After I got my head around that, I wrote a super condensed version of my original review of Heaven, and posted it on here. It was also by sheer fluke that I chose the now core colours of blue and white — previously I had been operating under a darker, more monochromatic theme when on Blogger.
Colour Scheme
Something about blue and white was calming, yet professional enough to say that this wasn’t a half-hearted website. As for the review icons, which are probably the most notable trait of my main posts, they were designed with simplicity and efficiency in mind. The blue border helped them pop, but also helped signify that the post itself was from this exact website.
Broadening of Content
Now, a year or so on, the site has had dozens of more reviews published on it, all written by yours truly. In addition to that, I started venturing down routes I hadn’t expected to (after realising I could not reliably read and review a novel every two weeks), leading to the Blog section and a couple of manga reviews being created to fill the gaps. I also started doing hauls and TBR wish lists.
Attention hasn’t been astounding, but the site has garnered a few thousand views in this past year. It has sudden spikes, and the weeks of lowly single digit views. Generally speaking, I consider a strong day as a couple of visitors who check out at least two or three posts each. I can’t output daily content, so I can’t expect that I’m going to get enormous amounts of visitors each day.
Distractions & Improvement
Could I have handled things better when it came to the site? Most definitely. I have made plenty of errors and occasionally neglected the site to focus on life and my (now discontinued) project of reviewing music. There were also periods where I felt disinterested in reading, creating a hiatus in reviews.
Over time, I have silently went back to fix typos, tweak reviews, and expand on ideas that I initially had not included/fleshed-out in the original iteration of certain posts. I don’t do it often, more so sporadically. Not to mention at least three major overhauls of the website’s layout and structure, each of which has been an improvement on the previous.
My Conclusion After One Year
In the end, I’m quite proud of myself. I have managed to have fun with this site, and will be supporting it for at least another year or two. I like the balance of friendliness and formality that exists here, and I do notice my regular supporters who always like each post and sometimes comment. To think that maybe, just maybe, a handful of people out there actually look forward to the next thing I write… what a treat that is.
Whether you are one of those people, or are simply browsing for the first time, thank you for stopping by and reading this lengthy anniversary post. I look forward to reading more, writing more, and experimenting more.
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