Daddy Rolls a 1's First Anniversary

Those of you who go back and read my old posts will note that my first post here was made on February 11th, 2011, meaning that this past Saturday was my first year anniversary of posting about games, comics, fantasy, and science-fiction. 

While I guess it's sad that I missed the actual day, I think I have a pretty good excuse - I was out-of-town with my wife's family at a memorial service for her grandmother.  I did have my iPad with me and probably could've made a quick post, but I decided it was more important to concentrate on my family and leave the post for another day. 

I'm back now, and wanted to chat a bit about my past year blogging here at Daddy Rolled a 1. 

During the past year, a bunch of things have happened.  Many of them are, either directly or indirectly, related to this blog. 

1. The biggest thing is, I have kept up with my blogging.  It's not as much as I'd like (you people out there who write a new post every day - how do you do it?!), but I think it's an easy thing to take for granted.  Writing is not something that the majority of people do naturally.  It's difficult to come up with things to say and then write them down in a public forum where you think people might be interested in reading your opinion.  So, I'm glad that I've been able to keep it up and make a new post at least a few times a month. 
2. I read a ton more.  I think this is partly what's cut into whatever free time I might have available for blogging, but actually reading other peoples' blogs, especially those related to the whole OSR thing, have made me realize that I'm woefully under-read.  Over the past few years, I've pretty much devoted my only reading time to either graphic novels or RPGs and their supplements.  But, after starting to blog, I rediscovered my interest in reading actual books and over the past year, I've read more than I have in probably the past five years combined.  I've read everything from genre fiction like The Black Company to Hiero's Journey (a re-read since I'd read it before) to Coming of the Horseclans to non-fiction like A History of the World in Six Glasses and World Whiskey. And, I've kept up on my graphic novels and RPG reading, too, but have expanded it by adding things like Kamandi: Archive Edition, Vol. 1 and PDFs of a bunch of old-school retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future.
3. I expanded my gaming experiences. Up until this point recently, I'd pretty much specifically played whatever the current version of D&D is, with some dabblings long ago in the past into other TSR games like Gamma World, Top Secret, and Star Frontiers, and one Summer spent playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (1st Edition). But, over the past year, I've played a bunch of different RPGs, most notably running an OSRIC game, playing in three different Savage Worlds games (a solo game in ancient China, a "Weird War II" game with zombies and vampires, and a Call of Cthulhu game), and helping collaboratively write the rules for a weird mash-up of Pathfinder, 4E, and Savage Worlds that we call "Cal & D." And I've done all of this while still continuing to run my 11+ year long World of Samoth game and playing in my friend Brian's Friday night "Andalusia II" game.
4. I've met a lot of cool people. When I started this blog, the only blog that I read besides my friend Wil's was James' Grognardia. But I started seeing links to other blogs as I started writing more, and now I follow a ton of blogs and keep up with all of their updates every day on my iPad. Lots of people have commented here, which is awesome, too.  So, it's like I made a bunch of new friends, even though I've never had the chance to meet any of these people in real life, and none of that would have happened had I not started my blog.
5. D&D has been through some changes.  I'm not exactly certain when the whole Essentials line came out, but I feel like it wasn't that long ago, and now they're talking about a new edition already.  It's looking pretty likely that I will get to playtest the new edition, which I'm really excited about, but I'll tell you more later once it's confirmed.  It's been fun to read the opinions and comments from all over the OSR blogosphere about the new edition.  I'm curious how my opinions will match up once I get to actually see the rules.  

As far as my little blog here, what are some of the highlights over the past year?

1. I'm up to 62 followers!  It took me a long time to break the 60 follower barrier.  While it's not as many as a lot of other bloggers have, I feel pretty good about it.  I also know there are a lot of people who read the blog who didn't click on the "Follow Me" button on the side.
2. The most read-post of all time is "Finally: A New Post (Updated Currently Watching)" from August 25, 2011, with 1,643 page views.  It has more than twice the number of page views of the second-most popular post of all time, "Really Cool Custom Action Figure Site" from May 14, 2011, with 769 views.  Interestingly, that Action Figure post consistently ranks #2 every single week with the most number of new page views.  
3. It looks like the post with the most comments (13 total) is a relatively recent one: "Fun With Any Edition: AD&D 2nd Edition" from January 27, 2011.
4. The majority of my traffic has come from Google (1,997), followed by Timothy Brannan's site in the #2 position with 1,356 and then Jeff Rients' site in #3 with 678 referrals. 
5. The words searched on Google that most often lead to my site are:
1. daddyrolleda1.blogspot.com (22)
1. I always find it funny that someone would search for that, since that's the actual URL of the site itself.
2. fleischer superman (13)
3. d&d snacks
4. daddy rolled a 1 (11)

I'll go into some more specific stats in an future post.

What's coming up for Daddy Rolled a 1 in the next year?  Well, here's a few things I have on my list to do:

1. More frequent posting.  I'm not out of ideas, folks.  I have a HUGE list of topics to post about.  The problem is really time.  As I've mentioned before, since losing my main client, I've had to turn a lot more of my attention over to trying to win new business, and that comes at the expense of blogging time.  I want to blog more, but right now I need to concentrate on my business and my family to make sure that we're financially stable to pay all of our bills.  
2. A new logo! I have an idea for the logo I want for the site, and just need to figure out how to get it made without spending a ton of money.
3. A free RPG supplement giveaway.  I have an idea of an OSR type product that I've been working on for the past six months or so.  Once I finish typing it up, I'll need to lay it out and try to figure out how to handle the artwork and stuff, and then can offer it as a free download. I'm pretty excited about it.

 So, that's a look at the past year, both for me personally and for my blog, as well as a quick overview of some things to come.  I'd love to hear your comments.

Hanging: Home office, as usual.
Listening: "Roxanne (Live)" by Sting, on All This Time (Live) [Japanese Import Version]
Drinking: Pasadena's finest (water)