The State of New South Essays

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The truth is I enjoy writing New South Essays so much I would write it whether anyone read it or not. I enjoy the weekly challenge of connecting with readers, making you laugh or think, not that those are mutually exclusive aims. How else would I spend my weekend pre-dawn hours?

As faithful New South Essays readers you may be asking yourselves “How is this enterprise faring?” (No? You’re not? Well let’s just say you are for the sake of a literary device.)

No one wants to waste time reading a failing media entity, so I’ve decided to dedicate the final post of 2024 to a “state of the blog” providing highlights and even more highlights (there are no lowlights) from this year.

Before we dive in, here’s a reminder of why I do this: I launched New South Essays on March 11, 2011. I had written a draft of a novel, and everything I was reading about the publishing industry back then said I needed to establish an “author’s platform” to prove to agents and publishers there was a market for my writing.

I confessed my nefarious scheme in a post in March of 2012, and all was going according to plan until 2014 when life interfered with my writing schedule. New South Essays continued to generate readership through organic search, but I didn’t post any new content from Oct. 4, 2014, to May 2, 2020. It was COVID lockdown that provided the time and inspiration for me to relaunch the weekly blog after a six year hiatus.

There are lots of official looking charts and graphs included with the web tools I use to publish my media empire. If you like that kind of thing, I’ve included them with this post. If you’re more of a “TL;DR” (too long; didn’t read) type of person, the quick summary is that in 2024 I wrote a total of 44,370 words in 42 posts generating 63 likes from 181 subscribers, 10,987 views, and 8,117 unique visitors from 118 countries. 

The traffic and visitor numbers represent increases of 16% and 14% respectively. And you thought I was joking about the media empire. The state of New South Essays is strong.

My most-viewed post published in 2024 was the Oct. 12 admission that sharing my feelings led to better sleep. I’m suspicious that the 201 views was Carla clicking it over and over again to re-read the phrase, “Carla was right.”

My home page generated the most views with 2,250, which is as it should be. The post with the most traffic was my post from July 2023 about Southern social media influencer and storyteller Landon Bryant with 1,397 views. Landon was generous enough to share my post, and his legion of followers from his actual media empire, continues to prompt readership for New South Essays.

Most of you find New South Essays from my posts on Facebook, which can be tricky given Meta’s constant tinkering with the algorithm. I humbly remind you that you can subscribe from newsouthessays.com in the right hand column so that you never miss a new post. 

Encouragingly, an increasing number of people are finding New South Essays through search. That’s where the bulk of my international readership comes from. I try to adhere to search engine optimization best practices with alt tags and accessibility considerations, but most of the time it just comes down to the words. People find the blog if they’re interested in the content.

Carla used to tell me that the poignant, emotional posts were the best. Now that our 27 year marriage is bereft of emotion, she says she likes the funny ones the best. Amazingly, we don’t always agree on what’s funny, and my 16 year-old recently informed me that my humor is “cringey because I try too hard.”

Artistically, if I am allowed to use that word, I will continue to choose topics based on my life. I try not to make this too academic. Anything is fair game that gives me an opportunity to make an attempt at humor, which if Carlton is to be believed perhaps in 2025 I should try less hard.

I will continue to endeavor to post weekly, though some weeks might call for a repost of previously written content. I recently concluded a 10 year-run of a blog for Smyth & Helwys Publishing called “View from the Pew.” I plan to dedicate that writing time to New South Essays and the aforementioned novel.

So how am I doing? You tell me. I appreciate feedback in all of its forms. Having cut my teeth on newspaper journalism, I’m not sensitive to receiving critical notes. In full disclosure, I will say when I ask Carla what she thought of a particular post and all she does is point out the typos, I am a little deflated (“But how did the taxonomy of peanut products make you feel?”)

If you have a topic you’ve always wondered about that can fit under the broad umbrella of New South Essays, leave a comment and let me know. I always appreciate hearing from New South Essays Nation (Does “nation” go too far? Feels like Carlton is right on that… trying too hard to make that a thing).

So happy new year and thank you for sticking with me. Together we can make New South Essays the wildly popular internet sensation I tell everyone it is already.

What was your favorite post from 2024? What about from all time? Leave a comment and join the conversation. I may even be inspired to spring for some merch and send you something! (no promises.)