Hello Readers!
Earlier this week marked the six-month anniversary of this blog’s existence. During that time it has grown from a little repository for me to share some music-related snarky remarks and sarcastic comments, to an actual site for semi-legitimate music journalism, with news being shared and reviews being written based on requests from bands, labels, and publicists all over the world!
Well now, just a few days later, I am hitting another important milestone because this is the 100th post to be published here. And, at some point earlier this week (I don’t know exactly when, but it looks like it was probably on Tuesday), I had my 5000th visitor. That might not sound like a big number, but just for the sake of comparison: in the second half of October (from the time of my first post, through the end of the month) I had fewer than 25 viewers, but in the first half of April (through today) I have had just under 1000. That sounds pretty good to me, when I consider the fact that I have done virtually zero advertising (outside of sharing my posts with the bands/labels/etc. that I’ve written about, on their Facebook pages).
I know when I originally wrote the About the Valley of Steel (The Blog) page, I indicated that my reasons for starting to write were personal — in other words, that it was chiefly for my own benefit. That remains mostly true, because honestly, music is such a big part of my life, and I think it’s awesome that I have the opportunity to hear so much new and exciting stuff all the time. At the same time, I view writing as a way that I’m able to give something back to the musicians (and other people in various facets of the industry) to show my appreciation for what they do. If somebody reads something that I wrote, and they go on to “like” that band on Facebook, or attend a show I wrote about, or buy an album that I reviewed, well… then I feel like all the work I do here is 100% worth it.
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