The Dangers of Fixating on the Numbers

As some of you know, I've only recently re-entered the blogging and Tweeting world. This is also the first day that my novel The Talented is for sale (OMG!). And for the last week, I've been completely caught up in the numbers, and these are the questions constantly going through my mind:

• How many views has my site had so far today?
• Has anyone new followed me on Twitter?
• Which page is my most viewed for the day?
• How many retweets did that last tweet receive?
• How many unique viewers have I had this month?
• How many times can I tweet a promotion for the same book?
• How many views has my site had now?
• How do my page views/retweets/# of visitors today compare to yesterday?

It's interesting, and important, but if you're like me it can be easy to fall down the rabbit hole of stats and lose track of what is actually important. Like writing.

These last few days, I've spent way more time refreshing my various pages and checking my stats than writing. I've spent way more time obsessing about how popular my blog is than plotting out the sequel to The Bodyguard or working on the sequel to The Talented (apparently sequels are my thing right now). And while watching my stats might be fun, or even transfixing, and they might invite me to follow them down the rabbit hole, they aren't nearly as important as producing quality content. Because in the end, having something available to read for the people who do make it to my website is far more important than the number of people who visit on a daily basis.

So avoid fixating on numbers and the rabbit hole that comes with it. If you're a writer, write.