The Tek - Stats for March 2021

EDIT - Even more confusion to the mix. I figured out why my stats looked wrong. Google Analytics pulled half the data from 2020 and half from 2021. I have no idea how that happened. I've updated this post with accurate webstats now. Sorry about that. 

March was a confusing month. I tripled the number of downloads from DriveThru in a month where I removed the direct links from the sidebars of my website. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 2
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 3
Kobold's Folly: 1
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 2
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 2
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 4

I've decided how I am going to change The Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D. It will be renamed "The Character Pack for D&D and AD&D" and I will place all of my home brewed characters in it. They will get the same treatment as my Unicorn Character Class and be bundled together. The price will remain the same, PWYW. 

I am looking at the Monomach, Hoodlum and Unicorn class right now for cleanup. I am thinking I will do a 3 page write up for each and make them their own "booklets". The Swashbuckler will have two booklets, the original and a new tweaked version based on character play.

The deadline is "I don't know". 

Webstats felt very good but also perplexing. I am way down, so I don't get it. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 805
Google Analytics Sessions - 533
Pageviews per Session - 1.53

Back in Dec-Jan. someone pointed out my commenting system was locked up. By unlocking it, I have a lot more guests posting and commenting. 

My other goal for March and April is to give my series posts logos. Disneyified logos like so: 

At least the most recent series: Star Wars, Keep on the Borderlands and Peninsula of Plenty. Right now I have zero time for session play, but this summer I think I will have time. 

The Tek - Stats for February 2021

This month confirms that February is a bad time for sales on DriveThruRPG. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 0
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 1
Kobold's Folly: 1
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 0
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 2
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 1

I've had a year of criticism at the table with the Swashbuckler character class, I think I'll do something with that this year. I also have a few ideas for upgrading Kobold's Folly which includes a new product. It's time. 

Webstats felt very good but were also down. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1070
Google Analytics Sessions - 926
Pageviews per Session - 1.15

It was a short month, so they have to be down but I really feel they could have gone way down. What I have noticed is far more engagement between people emailing me and leaving comments, I think I have come a long way. 

Back in Dec-Jan. someone pointed out my commenting system was locked up. I fixed that, so that explains all of the comments. I love it. The spam hasn't been too bad. 

The Tek - Stats for January 2021

The Stats for January 2021. I never did post my whole year summary. Maybe this week. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 4
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 0
Kobold's Folly: 1
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 0
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 7
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 4

It's time to re-do, update and add to my DriveThruRPG offerings. 

Webstats were up a good bit. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1521 vs. 1,241 or 22%. 
Google Analytics Sessions - 910
Pageviews per Session - 1.67

My Amazon links are a conundrum. Virtually all funds from Amazon came in the last quarter of 2020, probably owing a loin's share to a single reader of this site. There does seem to be a correspondence between high quality posts with clicks and funds from Amazon. I do not receive a click by click rundown of commissions made, but I can see an incredible amount of clicks preceding those commissions. 

DriveThruRPG links are still the clear winner, out performing Amazon ads by a 4 to 1 margin. 

31 Day Character Challenge

A few days or weeks ago, I saw Tim Brannan's post on a 31 day challenge. The goal is to post 31 characters in the month of January. See his first right here.* I thought that was awesome, I love rolling characters. 

But... I do this all the time. Click the Pregenerated tab to see over 100 characters. It would be better for me to not play along, go read other people's blogs and instead do something else for myself this year. I don't know what that is yet, but I've decided to post links to others doing this challenge as I come across them. 

I have to be honest, it took me 30 seconds to find Tim's post not counting the 30 minutes of reading his other recent posts. Follow those links above and subscribe. 

I can't leave you high and dry on New Year's Day. I do have a small contribution to this 31 day endeavor. Here is a list of 20 4d6 rolls with the lowest roll dropped. 

 Here they are typed out in order:

A) 15, 12, 12, 9, 16, 10
B) 10, 14, 14, 9, 12, 11
C) 13, 16, 17, 13, 13, 12
D) 11, 14, 15, 12, 12, 13
E) 9, 13, 12, 15, 12, 14
F) 14, 10, 10, 11, 10, 11
G) 14, 13, 10, 14, 16, 12
H) 13, 15, 14, 13. 14, 14
I) 14, 17, 16, 6, 9, 11 
J) 11, 13, 11, 12, 15, 14
K) 10, 15, 11, 13, 14, 14
L) 11, 8, 12, 13, 9, 17
M) 10, 16, 3, 11, 15, 18
N) 13, 14, 17, 14, 11, 15
O) 12, 17, 15, 14, 12, 12
P) 17, 10, 14, 13, 13, 15
Q) 10, 7, 13, 17, 12, 15
R) 12, 14, 10, 9, 17, 16
S) 13, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16
T) 14, 12, 16, 14, 15, 15

I hand rolled these numbers on my lunch breaks last week when I thought I would be participating. What I find interesting is, I don't ever recall rolling a 3 as a stat. I'd like to say I must cheat a lot when rolling dice, but in this exercise, I didn't roll a single 4 or 5 and the one 3 I rolled was actually four 1 in a roll. By the same standard, I only rolled one 18, 7 and 8. That is weird, but thems the dice for you. 

The Tek - December 2020

Ah, this is it: The Stats for December 2020. Now that I have enough data, I may post a whole year summary. I need more coffee. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 1
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 4
Kobold's Folly: 4
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 2
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 1
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 2

Downloads and sales were flat, but I can live with 14 total downloads per month. It's probably time to re-do, update and add to my DriveThruRPG offerings. 

Webstats were down a bit, almost 10%. But not horrible. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,241
Google Analytics Sessions - 749
Pageviews per Session - 1.65

I've learned a bit in the middle of this pandemic. 

I have a whole year of data on my Rakuten Advertising ads. Many clicks, zero income. I am going to say goodbye to Rakuten. It is not aligned with my audience. There is a slight chance that I will keep one segment of Rakuten, The Lego Store. I may have zero people who will make a purchase, but I love the creativity of Lego and I will probably continue to link to the store. It's a content choice over marketing or advertising. It's nonsensical from a business standpoint, but I very much enjoy their photography and products. 

If you are looking for an advertiser that isn't aligned to games, then Rakuten is worth a look. It didn't work for me, but it does look like a useful tool. 

The clear winning Advertiser is DriveThruRPG. They brought in many times what I made in all other advertisers combined. Roughly, 7 times all other sources. It isn't a ton of money, but it is sufficient for me to pay for my site, to make some discretionary purchases and expand my offerings.  

My Amazon links are a conundrum. Virtually all funds from Amazon came in the last quarter of 2020, probably owing a loin's share to a single reader of this site. There does seem to be a correspondence between high quality posts with clicks and funds from Amazon. I do not receive a click by click rundown of commissions made, but I can see an incredible amount of clicks preceding those commissions. 

The TEK - January 2020 Stats

Despite having a massive update to Kobold's Folly and The Compass Rose Inn Minisetting, sales and downloads were bad. However, as a bright spot, up to 250 people potentially received brand new files this month. One thing that probably hurt me was the fact that I replaced ads for my own products with DriveThruRPG's charity bundles for the wildfires down under. They need it more than I do. 

January 2020 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 1
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 3
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 5
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 3
Swashbucklers Character Class - 6

Webstats were much better.

Webstats (Updated):
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,608
Google Analytics Sessions - 1,034
Pageviews per Session - 1.56

Pageviews were up by 19.55% over last month. That's amazing.

What did I do last month? I started a daily post format for Strictly (Duke) Springer, a play through of Dwarfstar's Star Smuggler solo game. I implemented different ads, which doesn't seem to be working as intended. I also joined minds.com which is another outlet for communication. Earlier this month, feedmegames.com folded. So, I lost one and gained one.

You would think that the code used for my ads would attract bots, and you may be right. However, I can't see them in my statistics. I was looking for a sudden and unexplained uptick in visitors from off signal countries like China or Russia, but that hasn't happened, for which I am grateful.

What is on the agenda for February? Not much. Fewer but better ads. I would like continue working with Matt Jackson on his Collaborative Dungeon Project. My D&D campaign has been on hiatus due to me returning to school this semester. I expect to be back on it soon enough, but maybe not before February ends.

The TEK - December 2019 Stats

December 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 5
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 6
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 7
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4
Swashbucklers Character Class - 4

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,345
Google Analytics Sessions - 884
Pageviews per Session - 1.52


Pageviews were up by 11.34% over last month. That is cool.

What did I do last month? I did an update to the Kobold Folly Minisetting. Oddly, downloads were way down. I checked with DriveThruRPG and found out there is no mechanism to see how many people downloaded an updated file. It sort of makes sense, so I hope you got your update if you previously downloaded. Just go to your library tab and the new files will be there.

I also caught up and completed my series called 52 Weeks of Magic, with 17 posts in a month. Behind the scenes, I started preloading posts for January. I had 13 schedule and the first 3 went off without a hitch. I like posting in advance, but I don't have a tool to post across social media, automatically. I need to look into a tool for that. 

This year, you can expect to see many, many more reviews. January already has 2 set to go. Other new changes are I've become a Rakuten affiliate which possibly means better ads. My DriveThruRPG ads are the only ones generating any revenue at the moment. 

Best wishes in 2020.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to add some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

November 2019

December 2019

The TEK - November 2019 Stats

November 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 2
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 5
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 4
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4
Swashbucklers Character Class - 3

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,208
Google Analytics Sessions - 751
Pageviews per Session - 1.61


Pageviews were up by 29% over last month. That is cool.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were weak this month at 18 total. This month, I launched a new character sheet and really anticipated more downloads. Nope. I suspect that the main draw to this group of files is the age and nostalgia, so I missed with an update.

November is typically a rough month for me, but this time I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn't meet any of my goals for last month. I did add a lot of images and such, but not to every post. I did wordsmith a lot of them, but again, not all of them. To be honest, I was wordsmithing like 4,000 words every few days, so I'm sure I hit 50,000 words edited. I didn't do the tabs for podcasts or the blog roll. I did try it, but didn't like how it worked. The blog roll remains unchanged in format, while the podcasts got images. That was neat.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

October 2019

November 2019

December 2019

A Little Something New For Throwback Thursday - pt. 1

For #TBT, I'd like to share the top 10 searches on my website since July when I started using Google Analytics.

1. Pregenerated Characters - Love it. 
2. GSIV - This is one of my favorite games, Gemstone IV. 
3. Peninsula of Plenty - My campaign sessions. 
4. Experimental - Not sure why. This is my experimental writing. I should probably rename it to be clearer.  
5. The Tek - I share my stats so other bloggers have something, anything to themselves compare to. 
6. Nace - A city in my campaign. 
7. mostfavored - These are my favorite products, which I suggest with no compensation. 
8. AD&D - 'nuf said. 
9. Appendix N+ - Books that have a role in my worldbuilding and game play. 
10. Zero to Hero - My first book. 

The Tek - October 2019 Stats

October 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 10
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 9
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9
Swashbucklers Character Class - 4

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 933
Google Analytics Sessions - 618
Pageviews per Session - 1.35


Stats are down this month by 9.5%. Why? Because I didn't post a lot in the first week of the month, and what I posted was Inktober materials which do not entirely match up with my readership on D&D.

Back in August, I set a goal of 750 Pageviews. Even going down 9.5%, I managed 933 page views. That makes me happy.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were stronger this month at 42 total. If I had a $10 product, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, I don't have a $10 product, so I can just be happy over one download a day.

At the end of this month, DriveThruRPG was under attack and my downloads didn't change much. That issue is seems resolved, but it was very fluid for a while. They did a good job protecting themselves (and me) as near as I can tell.

November is typically a rough month for me. If I can hold the line at 750 Pageview, I'll be happy.

New things you can expect this month:

• A tab for my favorite podcasts
• A tab for my blog roll
• All posts, past and present, will have images added to them
• All posts, past and present, will be reedited and wordsmithed to reduce errors. 

The last is my Rebellion for NaNoWriMo. Instead of cranking out 50,000 words for a novel of dubious quality, I plan to edit tens of thousands of words to improve my website.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

September 2019

October 2019

November 2019

Analytics Rots the Soul

Stepping behind
my own curtain

According to Google, I have about 2000 page views a month. My target is a modest 3000 views a month. These are not thousands of individual people, several thousand times that someone comes to the site to read something. Fair enough, I think is a good measure.

But what are they reading?

According to the stats, my readers aren't reading much about me. My top 5 posts, in order are:

Google Docs Templates for D&D
Book Review - A Brief Study of TSR Book Design
The 3 Toadstools and #tenmonstersetting
Module Review - BSOLO Ghost of Lion Castle
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - Update - We are live!

The first is about  Benjamin Connell’s 3.5 Character Sheet, which I love for my D&D campaigns. The second is a review of Kevin Crawford's history of D&D books, the typography, style and page layouts. This was extraordinary helpful for my self-published books. The 3 Toadstool post was about Shane Ward's excellent campaign icebreaker experiment, Chris Hall's expansion. The ideas totally invigorated my creativity to produce new content for my campaign and my books. Ghost of Lion Castle was a solo adventure by TSR, which was a favorite of mine on rainy days. The final post is all about my first book.

So what?

3000 page views a month is not much of a goal. But to get there, I have understand my audience. If my goal was to convert every reader to a book purchaser, I am a total failure.

But was that ever my goal? I've been doing this since 2012 but didn't write my first book until 2018. That book was born out of the frustration of dealing with an accident at work, not any desire to... you know... make money or gain fame.

I've posted links to my books and thrown up some ads to make the website pay for itself, which is working. I have DriveThruRPG hosting files to mostly free titles I have written (I hate file hosting myself) which is also working. But going forward, I mean to be a part of the gaming community. My purpose isn't to make money or gain fame, but to transmit great ideas to the larger community.

In the month of August, I am bring out two new titles, which are totally tangential to the These Old Games. I mean to update and bring back 52 Weeks of Magic, which is a highly enjoyable activity even though it doesn't generate webhits. But most of all, I mean to write about all the things that are happening in this community.

At some point, I became a service provider, a place to read about all of the wonderful ideas from across the web.  Its time to fully embrace that.

Wish me luck!