Milestones

I'm celebrating a few blogging milestones today:

• The Outlandish Observations page on Facebook gained its 500th follower today! (Thank you, whoever you are!)
  
  
• The site has had more than 10,000 visitors in February (the first time that's ever happened, in the 3 1/2 years since I started this blog) and there's still two days left to go!
  
  
• The average number of visitors per month is up at least 54% from what it was a year ago (!)
  
  
• Just in the last month, the site has averaged more than 370 visitors and 670 page views per day (compared to an average of 233 visitors and 376 page views per day in February 2011).

Needless to say, I'm delighted by all of these developments. <g>

What's caused this recent spike? Well, I can think of a few things:

• Since Diana Gabaldon's official Facebook page was launched in September, 2011, I now have a vastly greater potential audience of fans who might be interested in my blog. (Thanks very much to those of you who found your way here as a result of a link on Diana's Facebook page, by the way.)
  
  
• The weekly Friday Fun Facts feature that I started in January has been very popular, and I'm very gratified by the positive reaction to something I decided to do more or less on a whim. <g>
  
  
• I joined Pinterest a few weeks ago, and that seems to be bringing some new visitors to my site. (If you're one of them, welcome!)
  
  
• I have finally gotten over being shy about talking about my blog where Diana can see it.

Some of you may be surprised by that last item, considering that I'm in communication with Diana on almost a daily basis on Compuserve. A little background might help. I started this blog in 2008, and for the first two years, I made no effort at all to draw attention to it on Compuserve, out of a lingering sense of....embarrassment? shyness? not wanting to appear like a gushing fangirl in front of Diana? (A combination of all of those things, actually, particularly the last one. <g>)

But ever since Diana's new website was launched last year, with my photo and a link to Outlandish Observations included on the Links page, I've gradually become less self-conscious about mentioning my blog in front of Diana. These days I have no hesitation at all about sending her links to posts that I think she'll find interesting, like the one about the symbolism of everyday objects. And I've been very gratified by her reactions. I get a thrill whenever she retweets one of my blog posts on Twitter, or comments on something I post on her Facebook page, because I know it's being seen by many thousands of fans.

Thanks so much to all of you who follow my blog and take the time to post your comments and reactions. It really means a lot to me. I hope you're finding this site interesting, entertaining, and full of useful information.

I was one of the first to create a successful OUTLANDER blog, and I'm always happy to help other OUTLANDER bloggers by sharing links and spreading the word about anything interesting that's going on in the OUTLANDER fan community. I hope that those of you who have OUTLANDER-related sites or Facebook pages will continue to do the same for me. I have said many times that I think those of us who have OUTLANDER fan-sites should support each other. We all have one thing in common: our love for Diana Gabaldon's wonderful writing and unforgettable characters. <g>