Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Decisions, Decisions.


Still hard at work on the order for Shadowmanor.com. I'm now at the stage where I have to decide what centerpieces, bosses and hasps look best on each book. So many choices. I guess the only thing to do is to make one of everything :)

Friday, January 8, 2010

The First One Is Always Free

Well, here we are, coming up on the end of the first year. Things seem to have gone pretty well; 67 posts, over 12,500 page views and 20 followers to date. I have to say it's been fun so far. I want to thank everyone who has visited or commented on this site, and especially those who have listed themselves as followers or posted links to this blog from their own sites.

As of today, my biggest referrer has been Google Image Search (not a real shocker there). Not too terribly far behind has been Propnomicon, who was the first site to pick up and blog about one of my posts, which he has done several times over the past year, and for which I am truly appreciative. I got a real kick out of seeing one of my images posted on the front page of another blog. It was very unexpected and caused a double-take the first time I saw it. He was also one of the first followers and the first site that I know of to put up a permanent link to mine.

There have been a handful of other blogs and sites that have linked to me that show up occasionally on my page statistics. Sitemeter doesn't keep a highest referrers stat (at least not the free version), so I 'm sorry if I can't thank you all by name.

One other site that has recently posted an article on their blog linking to this site, and which has created a respectable number of referrals, is Shadowmanor. Not only did they post about one of my creations, but they contracted me to do a big commission job to make some skull quill pens and several blank journals made in the style of my prop tomes which they intend to sell on their site as unique goth wedding guest books (I know, I've said I don't like to do commission work, but they caught me in a good mood, and I needed the money ;). That project has kept me busy recently and is partly why I haven't posted much in the past couple of weeks. That, and the holidays.

Well, I'd better get back to work if I want to finish that order any time soon. Happy New Year everyone, and thank you for making my first year as a blogger a pleasant one. Keep coming back, and I'll keep posting my creations for you to enjoy. I think that watching the site grow and seeing all the visitors and comments has actually helped keep me motivated to produce more and better things. I hope I may have inspired some of you as well.

-Rev. Marx