Epic Statistics

Every once in awhile, I take a look at the site statistics for Shortening the Road. After doing some simple math, I discovered that in the past year this site gets about 250 hits and about 340 page views every month! That can't all be from my Mom!

According to Blogger, my wee blog is clocking in at over 23 000 pageviews since 2008 and my visitors come from all over the world (these are all-time pageviews):

Belgium	9022
United States	5629
Canada	3912
Russia	1566
Netherlands	830
United Kingdom	586
Ukraine	518
Germany	429
France	403
Slovenia	384

Oddly, there are more than twice as many visitors from Belgium than my own home country of Canada. Could it be that I'm Big in Belgium and I don't even know it?

Wherever you come from, thanks for stopping by! I would really love to hear from you, so please leave me a comment. If you're on Facebook, please Like my fanpage. And if you'd like to have a copy of my stories for your own listening please, please download my CD!

Audience Analysis

I was just reviewing the traffic statistics gathered by Blogger for this site and I was more than a bit surprised at the results. I expected that most of my visitors would be from Canada, but that is certainly not the case.

As of today, my All Time Audience Statistics are as follows:

United States: 2,774
Canada: 1,933
Russia: 723
Germany: 231
France: 222
Ukraine: 193
Netherlands: 156
Slovenia: 116
United Kingdom: 113
Poland: 71

But in the past week, my Audience Statistics are as follows:

Canada: 36
Slovenia: 34
United States: 27
Ukraine: 13
Russia: 8
France: 3
Poland: 2
South Africa: 2
Costa Rica: 1
Germany: 1

Incredible! Canada and Slovenia are neck in neck in terms of traffic! I would really like to know who is watching this blog in Slovenia!

I don't get many comments on this site, but I would really appreciate it if you could leave me a comment stating who you are, how you found the site, and where you come from. It fascinates me.

And finally, the story post that has gotten to most number of pageviews (312) is the one that has the La Befana story in it. Amazing.

Bard's New Hat is on CDBaby!

My latest CD The Bard's New Hat is now available on CDBaby! You can either order a physical copy of the CD or download the entire album as a set of MP3s. As of today, the MP3s aren't available yet, but they should be by the end of the week.

If you think you're going to see me in person soon, you might want to wait until we cross-paths. But if you just can't wait, CDBaby might be a good option for you. The tracks should also be available on iTunes in a few weeks as well.

If you already have a copy of my CD and enjoyed listening to it, please visit my CDBaby page and leave a glowing review to encourage others to buy it! Thanks for your support!

Bard's New Hat is now in Beta!

I've made six copies of my upcoming CD The Bard's New Hat and I've been distributing them to people to review. I feel good about this CD, but I've been working on it for months, so I'm worried I can't be objective about it. I've seen enough questionable artistic endeavors that gave me pause and had me wondering "Did you get anyone else's opinion before you decided this was your Final Draft?" Before I make 1000 copies of this CD, I want to have a chance to get some feedback.

So if you've gotten a copy of this Beta CD, here are the things I want you to consider when reviewing it:
1. Is the collection of stories enjoyable?
2. Are there any stories you really don't like?
3. Do you like the order in which the stories are presented?
4. Are the volume levels okay? Can you hear everything clearly?
5. Did you listen to the whole CD in one shot, or did you take breaks between stories?
6. Do you find the music distracting or complementary?
7. Does the CD leave you wanting to hear more stories?
8. Would you recommend this CD to friends?
9. Would you recommend this CD to children? If so, what age level?
10. Is there anything you found inappropriate or offensive?

This list is just an example of the type of feedback I'm looking for. Anything you have to suggest would be welcome: don't worry about hurting my feelings, but try to be constructive with your feedback.

Please send all of your feedback to me by email at mtlbard [at symbol] gmail.com. If you could get me your feedback by the 26th of May, that would be great.