Well into its second decade, I have long been resigned to the fact that this blog is never going to challenge the giants on Substack and other major platforms. I am, of course, grateful to the millions (are you sure? – ed) of you who sign in every morning in order to see what crap I have come up with, but the one consistent is that it costs far more money to write than it generates in income, which apart from those generous readers who buy me a coffee, so I am basically paying to write. I am happy to do that, by the way, because I love and need to write every day, but this is in no way a side hustle that generates additional income. But perhaps help is at hand? My reading figures have increased, if not dramatically, then consistently in recent times. It’s where the views are coming from that amazes me.
Historically, the overwhelming majority of readers – assuming people actually bother to read my work – come from the UK. Of course they do. I write mainly, though not solely, about things that relate to my life. And as I spend the vast majority of my life in Old Blighty, it would be rather pointless to write about places I don’t know. Places like, for example, China. To my astonishment, the boost to my readership has come from China.
Not only am I getting hits from China, I am getting more hits from China than from anywhere else, including the UK. I wonder what it is that my new Chinese friends like about the blog? Is it the weekly Music Shuffle? The things I have written in recent weeks about bookmakers, fascist nutcases like Sue-Ellen Braverman, God, economic migrant Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe and drinking beer at football matches, perhaps? Obviously, I have no idea but to my new Chinese friends, whoever and wherever they are (China, obviously) it’s good to have you on board.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, I am able to source geographical data on anyone who reads my stuff and it’s quite startling. In the last seven days, people from the USA, Spain, Russia, Mauritius, Greece, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates have clicked on one of my blogs. While I have a fair idea who my reader in Mauritius was (I am seeing him for a beer next week, though sadly not in Mauritius), the rest are a complete mystery. There’s something rather lovely, to me at least, knowing that my efforts are being shared and read around the globe. Granted, I only had one hit from the UAE, but it certainly got me thinking. Was it a touring Brit, perhaps, or a petrochemical billionaire willing to sponsor the blog to the tune of – and let’s not be too greedy here – a couple of million quid? I mean, I do have principles, at least when it suits me, but I’m sure I could have different principles if it meant I could live in a life of sheer luxury for the remainder of my days on Earth. Don’t worry: I’m only jesting. But it is nice to dream sometimes.
Delving even deeper, I find that this blog has at some time penetrated almost every country on the planet, including Syria, Yemen, Tonga, Mongolia, Libya and wonderfully, once, the Falkland Islands. I was slightly overwhelmed when I learned the true extent of the reach of Eclectic Blue, knowing that people all around the world, albeit a very few of them, have clicked on and maybe even read the ramblings of a working class bloke in England. That is one of the joys of the World Wide Web.
As a kid, I made my own magazines which never left the house and were read only by me and my mum. Now, people in the Cook Islands, Burundi and Tajikistan can join in the fun. I’m hardly world famous, am I, given that I’m barely a household name in my own household, but knowing all this inspires me to keep going. And if anyone out there has enjoyed, or even more unlikely learned something, from the blog, then if I die tomorrow maybe it hasn’t been a complete waste of time.
Whoever and wherever you are, welcome aboard and financial donations are always gratefully received, no matter how great they are.
