Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

93,980?!

For the longest time, The Infinite Revolution pottered away at about 3,000 views a month.  Sometimes it would go over, sometimes it would be under, but 3K was the median for about six years.

Which was fine with me.  This blog was originally just an excuse to spend some time writing, an exercise in professional development.  I never promoted it on other platforms, although I did briefly monetize it through Google Adsense, but I was kicked off the program after I was accused of faking views.*  

At some point, I decided that it was a good enough sample of my writing style that I could put my name on it so that a potential employer could read it.  I didn't get the job, but to my complete surprise, it came up at my next job interview - they'd searched my name and found the blog. (I did get that job, although I doubt that the blog was a factor.)

Then, for the next six years, the median dropped down to about 2,000 views.  One month it went under a thousand - again, not an issue, but I was curious as to what might have changed.   

And then, sometime in 2024, it started to spike. In January, I cracked 10,000 views for the first time, an achievement which I repeated over six times that year, culminating in over 17,000 in December.  July of 2025 took me over 20,000; August, over 30,000, then back down under 20,000 for a few months.

February 2026 - 45,262, a number which seemed ridiculously high until June, which rocketed up to over 93,000 views - 93,980, to be specific.

What happened?  I suspect that with over 1,300 posts, I've simply reached some threshold of volume that makes for a visible presence. I'd love to think that it's more people reading the content rather than bots, but the alert reader will notice in the above screen capture that I only have four followers, which I feel is a far stronger metric of actual human readership that the views counter.

Still, it's hard not to feel a certain sense of accomplishment.  It's going to be interesting to see if it breaks 100K a month by the end of 2026 - and even a couple of months of half that would put me over a million total views for the blog.  I wonder if Blogger will notice?  If so, some kind of commemorative plaque would seem to be in order, like getting a letter from the Queen when turning 100. That would be fun, I wonder if there's someone I can contact about that?

- Sid

* After which I ended up getting a little money from Google after a 2018 class action suit accusing them of withholding Adsense payments was successful. Last year I attempted to rejoin Adsense just out of curiousity, and was accepted back into the fold. Since then it's generated about six bucks, it's certainly not a route to financial independence.

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

2026 Aurora Award Nominees: Represent!

And now, some Canadian content to balance out the Hugo Awards coverage: the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) has released the slate of nominees for the annual Aurora Awards, which recognize the best Canadian science fiction and fantasy works of the year.  In the past, the awards ceremony has been held in conjunction with Canvention, as with the Hugos and Worldcon, but in recent years the organizers have transitioned to an online ceremony in order to allow for a wider viewership.  The 2026 ceremony will be livestreamed on YouTube on August 9th - the link will be published closer to the event.

This year's nominees are:

BEST NOVEL

  • The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • Blight, Rachel A. Rosen
  • Direct Descendant, Tanya Huff
  • The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine, Robert J. Sawyer
  • Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales, Heather Fawcett
  • A Shift of Time, Julie E. Czerneda
  • Written on the Dark, Guy Gavriel Kay

BEST YOUNG ADULT (YA) NOVEL

  • Breath of the Dragon, Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee 
  • Fireboy, Edward Willett 
  • A Lion’s Head, D.M. De Alwis
  • Minotaur, Jamieson Wolf
  • One Morning Sun, Avi Silver
  • Winging It, Jen Desmarais

BEST NOVELETTE/NOVELLA

  • The First Thousand Trees, Premee Mohamed
  • In the Gardener’s Service, Michèle Laframboise
  • The Lure of Stone, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • A Palace Near the Wind, Ai Jiang
  • The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar

BEST SHORT STORY

  • Hunted To Extinction, Premee Mohamed
  • I Ain’t Your Doll Face, Jacqueline Thorpe
  • the love song of house and lake, Gillian Secord
  • The Stone Played at Tengen, R.H. Wesley
  • What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?, Rachel A. Rosen

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL/COMIC

  • Atana and the Jade Mermaid, Vivian Zhou
  • Bonds of the Forest, Ally Rom Colthoff
  • It Never Rains, Kari Maaren
  • Questionable Content, Jeph Jacques
  • Shark Girl, Kate Beaton

BEST POEM/SONG

  • At the Spaceport Bar, Lisa Timpf
  • Bigfoot Farewell, Carolyn Clink
  • Dragon Karaoke, David Clink
  • Explosive, Derek Newman-Stille
  • flowers without meadow, Tiffany Morris
  • From Dust, J. Y. Zhang

BEST RELATED WORK

  • As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories, Terese Mason Pierre
  • Augur Magazine, Issues 8.1-8.3, Kerry C. Byrne, Toria Liao, André Geleynse, Kelley Tai, and Azure Arther
  • On Spec Magazine, Issues #131 – 134, Vol 35, Diane L. Walton, Managing Editor
  • One Message Remains, Premee Mohamed
  • Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three, Stephen Kotowych, Editor

BEST COVER ART/INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION

  • Dancing With the Holly King, Janice Blaine
  • Seance, Alice M.
  • Lunar Base, Dan O’Driscoll
  • Starship Librarians, Lorna Antoniazzi
  • Listen to Me and I’ll tell You a Story, Ejiwa “Edge” Ebenebe

BEST FAN WRITING AND PUBLICATION

  • Amazing Stories online columns, Numbers 405-420, Steve Fahnestalk
  • Book Reviews in The Ottawa Review of Books, Robert Runté
  • Polar Starlight Magazine, Issues 17-20, Rhea E. Rose, editor
  • Speculative Poetry and the Hugos, Lynne Sargen
  • Young People Read Old Science Fiction, James Davis Nicoll

BEST FAN RELATED WORK

  • Can*Con, Marie Bilodeau, chair and Brandon Crilly, vice-chair
  • Scintillation, Jo Walton and Rene Walling, co-chairs
  • Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi, Troy Harkin and David Clink
  • Wizards & Spaceships, Rachel A. Rosen and David L. Clink
  • The Worldshapers Podcast, Edward Willett 

I see that The Infinite Revolution has not received a nomination this year - obviously not a surprise, but can you imagine?  Joking aside, I suspect that my little hobby is a bit too casual for awards consideration - although, we are coming up on the 20th anniversary of this blog, perhaps I should be recognized for sheer persistence.

- Sid