2016 was an absolutely extraordinary year. 2017 was considerably less explosive in terms of traffic growth, and was even a step backwards in several regards, but was nevertheless important due to a number of structural revisions being made behind the scenes that will provide a stronger foundation for future growth in the coming year.
In 2017, Vox Popoli had 31,216,357 pageviews and Alpha Game 3,952,482 for a total of 35,168,839 Google pageviews. The two blogs are now running at a average rate of 96,366 daily pageviews, up from an average 85,341 last year. The running annual pageview totals are as follows:
2008: 3,496,757
2009: 4,414,801
2010: 4,827,183
2011: 5,969,066
2012: 7,774,074
2013: 13,111,695
2014: 15,693,622
2015: 20,776,969
2016: 31,149,628
2017: 35,168,839
In August, I stepped away from blogging at Alpha Game, due to a lack of time and a growing lack of interest in the subject. I’ve learned what I wanted to learn and said what I wanted to say about intersexual relations; if I happen to write more on the subject, it will probably be in the form of a book. Lee Jackson has picked up the slack at AG and has already turned it around, so I’m glad to see that the community there will remain active.
The biggest blog news in 2017 was the unexpected magnitude of the success of the Alt★Hero crowdfunding campaign. As a result, we’ll be introducing two comics imprints in 2018, Arkhaven and Dark Legion. Arkhaven will be the comics and graphic novels that we produce ourselves, while Dark Legion will be our vehicle for publishing comics and graphic novels produced by others.
Castalia House expanded from 65 titles to 96, with 38 titles available in print and 24 in audiobook. Book sales increased 40 percent, with print accounting for 16 percent of the total. Infogalactic had some ups and downs as far as stability was concerned, but it is still going strong as we work towards the release of the DONT PANIC engine, while Infogalactic News and Infogalactic Tech were launched and have grown steadily in popularity. On the downside, Brainstorm was essentially shut down midway through the year due to GoToWebinar shenanigans following the sale of the company, which is why we’re going to move it to a different voice-only service this month. And we didn’t quite manage to launch Voxiversity in 2017, but we will do so soon.
I’ve also begun blogging more often at DevGame, since we’ll be launching four games there this year and probably doing one game-related kickstarter this summer that should be of considerable appeal to strategy gamers. For more information about that, be sure to visit DevGame from time to time in the new year. We will also be launching a complete site redesign of Castalia House in 2018, including dedicated forums and wikis.
Thanks to everyone who continues to read VP and to those who support one or more of the various endeavors that have emanated from it. Thanks especially to the Infogalactic Burn Unit, the Alt★Hero backers, the Castalia volunteers, and the Brainstorm crew, all of whom have come together in a spirit of cooperation to make these various projects viable.
2017 was a year for building foundations that should lead to constructive consequences in 2018. Of course, it would not be an annual report without a resort to our old comparable with “the most popular blog in science fiction.” Since I’m no longer the primary blogger at Alpha Game, I have removed it entirely from the equation. Gammas are certainly free to posture as they will, but the facts are the facts, however uncomfortable they might be. As for other metrics such as movies and whatnot, well, we haven’t even begun exploring those arenas. But I expect we will, in time.
And I anticipate that what we will do there will be very similar to what we have done here. The ride never ends.
