My least popular Helium article this year (so far)

Metropolitan Museum
of Art, June 2008

Earlier, I wrote about my most popular Helium article of the year -- a discussion of the short story The Magic Barrel. Now, I'm looking at the other end of the spectrum, at my least popular article of the year -- The Value of Being a Museum Member, which I first posted on April 27, 2010.

Stats

The museum article received 12 page views and earned 2 cents this year so far (7.5 months).  Over its lifetime (2.3 years), it earned 49 cents in revenue share. (Lifetime page views are not available.)  The article is currently ranked 2 out of 3 for its title. (more after the jump)

My most popular Helium article this year (so far)

1966 Dell paperback
edition

My Helium article that has the most views in 2012 (to date) is Literary analysis: The Magic Barrel, by Bernard Malamud, which I posted on Helium on December 27, 2009.

Article stats

So far in 2012 (almost six months), the article has received 5209 views -- a big jump up from my second most popular article, which received 2961 views during the same time period -- and it has earned $6.51, making it my highest earning Helium article year-to-date.

Over the article's lifetime (2.5 years), it has earned $20.68 (stats for lifetime views are not available), and is my fifth-highest earning Helium article of all time. It seems to be doing better this year than it has in the past.

About

Helium has a new social-media director. He's encouraging people to link to -- and, in return, be linked from -- Helium's official blog. I like several of his ideas, so I'm going to go along for the ride. Consider this blog an experiment in shameless self-promotion.

I'm going to be more aggressive and -- well -- more shameless here than I have been on my other blogs.

Shameless, hopefully,* doesn't mean obnoxious. I will try, as the bizspeak phrase goes, to add value. Hopefully,* I will not waste your time.

Here are some of the things you can expect to see:

The stories behind the stories: I'll be talking about some of my articles -- what led up to my writing them, what I think about them now, if I have anything to add that didn't fit in with the original format, and if anything has changed since the last time they were posted.

Thoughts on self-promotion: This may be navel-gazing for a blog that is dedicated to self-promotion, but the idea is to note whether the promotional techniques I am trying work and also how it feels to do them.  Will I really feel shameless?  As a benchmark to judge any future income progress, at the time of this post (June, 2012), I am making about 4 cents per article per month in revenue share on Helium, and about 2 cents per article per month on Yahoo.  (It can only go up from here, right?)

Ponies and rainbows: Well, maybe not ponies and rainbows, exactly, but I am aiming for a nonoffensive, noncontroversial tone here (you can find my more caustic stuff elsewhere).

You: Because all self-promotion is really mutual promotion, this blog will involve and promote you, dear reader.  For starters, I'm dropping my usual rule against trading links, and if you put me in your blogroll and let me know, I will put you in mine, providing that your blog is relevant to the topic and not spammy.

Promoters, I've heard, are always supposed to end with a call to action.  So here's yours: Follow me via Google friend connect, by email, or by subscription, using the handy gadgets in the sidebar to your right, let me know, and I will follow you back.

Good luck, and may all our promotional efforts bear fruit (but not too many vegetables).

* The AP Stylebook recently changed its policy to approve the use of "hopefully." The change disturbed many writers. Hopefully,* it didn't disturb them too much.