The highest day ever in terms of visitor and the second highest in terms of pages at 43,739. (We had one freak day last February with just over 50,000 page downloads because of several site reapers running at once).
But 13,658 visitors is more than twice the number of visitors on October 31, 2008. A few days later FictionMania went down and BC began a runaway traffic inflation. So fast that Bob and I have spent a lot of the last three and a half months trying to keep the server from crashing on a nearly daily basis.
I didn't really have a choice. Fortunately, I had another server available for a colo and with Bob's help we got it up and running and did the changeover in just a few days. And it's like we just hit the gas pedal, traffic has taken another big jump. Not as big as the one in early November last year but it makes me wonder how many people were trying to access BC all this time and couldn't get here because of the traffic on a slow server?
It's really not that much by the standards of FM at its peak, or even StorySite, but obviously, there is a lot of demand out there for this kind of story. :) Sometime in the next few months, I'm going to plan on upgrading the server again. If FM comes back up in the next week or so, I expect we'll have a sharp drop in traffic for a while but I don't think it will be that long before we're back to the 40,000+ page/day level again.
But the current server looks to be able to handle things for another month or three. And maybe soon we'll have another new and interesting TG site for everyone. :) We can't just let the old server sit there and feel lonely, now, can we?
Hugs,
Erin
Comments
Congratulations
on the increased readership, obviously your fame and that of Topshelf, is spreading. Maybe it's to do with the welcome you give them and the quality of some of the stories. I just hope if it gets much bigger, we don't lose the atmosphere and values we currently have.
Angharad
Angharad
An Author's Site
That's what Big Closet Top Shelf, Stardust, Piper's TGFiction.net and other similar sites are. An Author's Site, tailored to the writer's who contribute their work. That's not to say the readers aren't important, in fact they are the most important because without them none of this matters, but this site and the others like it are made for those of us who write. Here we can post our own work without having to submit it and wait for someone else to put it online; here we can go back and make corrections when the readers give us feedback without any hassle. This site and its siblings are tailor made to allow the aspiring author to hone and polish their talent.
Thank you, Erin, and Bob and all the others, for all the effort you put into this, and for giving us this great workshop and classroom.
Scott
-- Moliere
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Thank you ever so much Erin, Bob, Piper, et al.
Hi Erin,
I do not know where the on-line reading/writing TG community would have been these many months without you, Bob, Piper and a few others, providing reliable, stable websites to post and read our favourite literature. I wish I were able to support you in a tangible way, but all I can do is send you kudos.
with love,
Hope
with love,
Hope
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
You Guys Did a Great Job w/The Previous Server
With the tuning you and Bob did and the 1/2 hour restarts, the site worked really well. The only times I really had any trouble was when I tried to do something near the restart times (which amazingly was more often than one would think).
I think you're right that growth will continue (after a drop when Fictionmania comes back) as many of the authors that have started posting here since Fictionmania went down will stay here.