12 percent of all visitors to my website arrive via Google. These visitors end up on my website not because they know me, or were told about my site, but because they typed something into Google and somewhere in the results, my site popped up. So what have people been googling that brings them to my website? For the most part: information on penises.

One of the amusing things about having a website is analyzing its visitor data. There is all sorts of nifty information I can glean about my visitors: pages visited, traffic sources and keyword search terms to name a few. For instance, in the last two weeks, there have been over four hundred visits to my website. Granted, many of those visits were my own — I really do enjoy my own writing. Total visits fall to 272 once I strip out my own narcissistic tendencies. And before any of you ask, I’ll admit that my mother accounted for 16 of the remainder. So we’re down to 256.

Obviously there is a difference between visits and visitors because, believe it or not, some people do come to my website more than once. Tallying distinct visitors reveals I’ve had 154 unique individuals come to my website in the last two weeks — excluding me and mom. These 154 visitors spent an average of 11 minutes each on my website. Now, I’m certainly not complaining about these numbers. 154 is better than nothing. I’m glad I can provide those of you who are bored — and perhaps taking a break at work — with some form of entertainment during your busy day. I don’t at all regret giving up my former career. If you like, perhaps after I finish writing this blog I could mow your lawn or take out your trash?

Many people I speak to are surprised that I’ve yet to approach a publisher about my book. I’ve got many reasons for this, but they all can be summarized with one word: 154. Or is that five words? Because unless my book retails for — oh — $10,000 per book, then the one hundred and fifty-four people who’ve been to my site in the last two weeks is just not going to cut it. After all, first-time authors typically receive no more than 10 percent of the proceeds on the sale of their book. The reality within the publishing industry is that it’s mainly up to the author to promote his or her book. There are four hundred thousand titles published each year in the US, half of which are returned to the publisher from the bookstores, unsold. So publishing my book is not my goal. Publishing and selling oodles of copies is. Hence everything I’ve been doing over the last few months, I do to build an audience for my book. And if this doesn’t work out, I’ll have 154 leads that I can start hitting up for a real job.

Delving into the visitor data, I note that almost half of my website’s visitors got there by typing www.brucefreedman.com into their browser. That means they are friends of mine, or they obtained my website address directly from some other means: referrals, my business card, or perhaps even my giveaway bookmarks. 39 percent of visitors arrived at my website by way of a link on another website — such as facebook or hotmail or bloglines. The rest got there via the search engines.

Now while I think my best chance for audience growth is referrals, search engine data to me is quite intriguing, even mysterious, because for the most part it represents complete strangers who are in no way connected to me. These questioning souls were searching for answers to one of life’s grand mysteries and somehow googled their way onto my website. Of the 34 googlers who did make it to my website in the last two weeks, 70 percent were looking for information on average penis size. So what makes me such an expert on penises?

My book has thirty-five chapters in it, and discusses topics ranging from child rearing to the war on terror. It’s analytical humor; I like to think of it as a cross between Freakonomics and the writings of David Sedaris, with a splash of Howard Stern thrown in for good measure. On the whole, I think it’s relatively wholesome but provocative entertainment, fun for the whole — dysfunctional — family. But there is one chapter that really stands out: “Too Big or not too Big — That is the Question.”

A family friend, a doctor, read a bit of my website and offered last week to place a stack of my bookmarks in her waiting room for patients to take away. I appreciated the gesture, and because I like her, suggested she read the “Too Big” chapter before she chooses to associate her medical practice with me. She hasn’t called me back yet to repeat the offer.

I wrote “Too Big” in October 2006, shortly after a conversation with a friend who had once dated a woman I had been with. One night over a few beers, he bragged about how she had complimented his dick, saying it was gorgeous. He specifically used that word. “Wait a minute,” I slurred. “She called my dick gorgeous too!” What were the odds? Was she calling every dick gorgeous? I felt sick to my stomach. I started to question the truth. Was my penis gorgeous? Was it really big enough? My paranoia was compounded by the fact that I was a particularly late bloomer only entering puberty in my last year of high school. I searched for the truth online. I discovered that there is a plethora of so-called research on the subject, but very few studies that can truly be called objective. I personally picked through the data, and the results are summarized in the chapter.

I like this chapter a lot and it’s perhaps in some ways the funniest of my writings. But while it is analytical, statistical and personal, it’s also probably not representative of the book as a whole. It’s also subjected me to some strange looks; many people are shocked that I’ve put up so much personal information about myself. I personally don’t see what the big deal is — it’s certainly not the bane of my existence — but given some of the feedback I’ve received, I have occasionally wondered if posting it is a mistake and detracts from the rest of the book. But I can’t remove it, not when it’s bringing so many visitors to my website — even if they do have small penises. I have tried to counter the chapter’s negative impact on my book’s image by posting two other “loftier” chapters: “People who Abandon their Faith” and “Jesus was a ba-a-a-d boy.” Unfortunately few visitors read those ones. They all go for the cock. I guess people would rather read about my penis than the decline of spirituality and religion. Not that I blame them, everybody needs a higher power and the chapter does have a happy ending.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Promotion, Writing. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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