New Links for Products by TheseOldGames.com

I've always wanted links to DriveThruRPG to look like links to Amazon. However, most of DriveThruRPG doesn't work like that. If you look to the left of this post, you can see an example of what I wanted, which is an affiliate tool for the Daily Hot New Book. You can get that link by logging in to DriveThru and scrolling to the bottom of the Affiliate Resources Page.

The code looks like this (excuse the image, blogger doesn't like code tags):

It displays the ad like this:

Hottest New Book City of Nexus | 20x30 Battlemaps [BUNDLE]

By harvesting their code, you can change what is displayed by manipulating the code, like I did for my Swashbuckler Character Class.

Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D Swashbucklers for D&D and AD&D

You can get the product page link via the Social link on DriveThruRPG. 



That will automatically append your Affiliate Id to the link, which is super handy. The image associated with the product can be directly linked to by right clicking the thumbnail and copying the image address. Many times you can plug that image link right into the code.  

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Heroes Zero to Hero

The thumbnail seems to be generated by .css, which will rescale the image to 139 by 196 for the product page. However, if the author uploaded a larger image, you will have to rescale the image and host it yourself. That happened to me with all of my products. I should probably go back and rescale all of the images so DriveThru does less work to display a thumbnail. 

Character Sheet for AD&D Character Sheet for AD&D

You can combine the code above with the table html to create side by side links, like I did below.

Kobold’s Folly Mini Setting Kobold’s Folly	The Hex Pack The Hex Pack	Compass Rose Inn Mini Setting Compass Rose Inn

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.

Welp, it was good while it lasted... Feedmegames.com

It was good while it lasted. It appears that feedmegames.com is gone for good.

I had to yank that off of Google's cache. I missed it in real time.

On the upside, the Buffalo Bills have another chance next tear... er, I meant "year".

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

New Add to the Blogroll - THAC0

Ryan and Jarad are fellow bloggers both on Facebook and BlogSpot.com. They write for THAC0 RPG about D&D. I'd tell you all about their recent posts with new character classes, but I went all the way back to the beginning, to the time Ryan wrote: I think I might have broken my AD&D party.

Since the demise of Google+, I have been enjoying the universe of blogs. THAC0 RPG is no exception. Other recent adds are Ten Foot Polemic and 3 Toadstools. I'm on Blogger.com, but Blogspot seems pretty hot.

I have to do something about my blogroll to make it stand out, but while you are there, check out Old School RPG Planet. It's the best blogroll for RPGs around.

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!