Thank you to all my readers, you've all helped contribute to making this blog highly successful. I don't want to blow my own trumpet or anything, but right now I could be the most read New Zealand based blogger worldwide. I've got tens of thousands of readers, starting with the greatest number in the USA, then New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Canada, Indonesia, Australia and Ireland - in that order.
Just recently I've started gaining readers in Portugal, Poland, Spain, Latvia, Iraq and Morocco.
In the early days, people read about new trucks for the New Zealand army the most, but then I reported on the Australian who claims to be the first son of Prince Charles and his current wife Camilla. It went ballistic and my blog was reported in the overseas press.
But then something happened; people also started reading my Snob's Guide on moving to New Zealand (for those Americans thinking about this since Donald Trump has been elected) and about New Zealand and my plans for making it better. Those blog posts took over from the ones about the army trucks and Prince Charles. We are talking a lot of page views each day and rising.
I'm going to continue writing in a similar vein through 2017. I'll try to keep things somewhat eclectic, not just the same old same old. I plan on writing a third book, non-fiction, a Snob's Guide to Everything New Zealand and anything else interesting, and I'll keep you all updated on when it's due for publication. It shouldn't take all that long, I'll just rant at my middle child and then write these rants down soon after.
Forum
I plan on starting a forum. Any advice about which forum provider is best is much appreciated, I don't want to make a bad choice as it'll be hard to switch and keep the data once up and running. It'll be a free forum, with a link to it at the top of the blog alongside the other links.
The other thing to consider is the structure of the forum, the categories to use, making navigation easy. If you have a preference please let me know. There is a contact form >>> to the right which sends straight to my gmail. I check it several times a day.
Prizes
As an innovation I may offer prizes to readers (guess what the prizes will be...anyone?). These prizes may not be easy to win, and could involve hard quizzes on history, politics, economics, sport and general wingnuttery.
Contributors
At the moment only I write for this blog. But if you think you're up to it and can write a thousand words of cogent argument about something sensible (and if not sensible then it must be funny) then send it to me and if acceptable then I'll publish it with you getting credit. There will be no payment, but you do get credit. Think comment pieces, any original research or investigative work would be better placed in the forum.
To be a contributor you must use your real name, no aliases. I use my real name, and finding me is pretty easy, my details are in the NZ Yellow Pages online. So write away and submit to me, if you're hard to find I may ask to ring you up to check that you exist. If things go well and you become trusted, then you may get to register as a site user and post directly. This will not be that common as I'm a stickler for correctness, spelling and such, and try to eliminate errors. So to get the right to post directly on this site, you'd have to be very clean.
I've decided not to monetise the site at this stage, advertisements are annoying. But you can buy my books, that's always welcome: https://www.amazon.com/Ken-Horlor/e/B00VQEETJW/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
Anyone who contributes a piece that is published can have a link to their work too, no problem at all. Whether you provide a product or service, or you're promoting your talent or selling a book, it's all good but just remember, not too much shameless self promotion.
Why contribute? I've spent years on my little blog and have just broken through, by all means start your own blog but get ready for a long lead time. If you write and publish here, you'll get noticed much faster as you're going to be read a lot right from the word go. If you're a competitor, that is another blogger, then we may co-operate, that is we provide reciprocal pieces, together with links and credit both ways.
That's all folks, have a nice Christmas and great New Year, let's hope 2017 proves to be an interesting year. I'm sure it will.
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