Yesterday I let my readers know the results of the first part of my little survey about MIP. Here’s the second part of what you told me from the survey:

1. The least popular features are (in this order): Poetry Saturdays, the 26 Tuesdays features (which I admit are driving me crazy, even though I believe in doing this), and the Slow Reader Thursday features (The reading part of this is driving me crazy, given the length of some of the books on my reading list).
2. If a survey respondent chose “other” on the above improvements, they usually said, “Write what you like to write when you want to write it.” I will take the “I want free books” statement “under advisement.”
3. 55% of my readers think I communicate the message and purpose of my blog extremely well; the rest said it was communicated very well. WOW. I’ll definitely take that.
4. 90% of you said you were either extremely likely or very likely to recommend MIP to someone else. WOW again! And please do…the more readers I have, the more likely it is that I can start offering those aforementioned free books. Jus’ sayin’.
5. 85% of you are either extremely or very interested in the novel. I’m truly flattered, particularly because I’m not tellin’ what I’m writing until it’s finished! This means I might actually be “out of debt” for this blog site someday and not have to rely on the generosity of my sweet hubby.
6. 80% of you are interested in a Lessons Learned book. That book is also started, but it has taken a back seat to the novel for the time being. It will probably be published on the heels of the novel, if at all possible.
7. 50% of you read the blog 2-3 times a week; 25% of you read it 6 or more times per week; and 20 % of you read it 4-5 times a week. Guess what? Expect to see 2 to 3 blog post per week in the future. This gives me “space” to write the novel.
8. 30% of you read the blog between 6 pm to midnight on weekdays; 25 % of you read it between 12 noon and 6 pm on weekdays and 20% of you read it between 6 am and noon on weekdays. You may see me tweeting and updating my Facebook professional page at about 11 am on the weekdays only when new blog posts come out. Again, this is all to make “more space” for writing the novel.

Tomorrow’s Post: What the Survey Results Mean for the Future of MIP…

New to MIP? May I suggest: Results of the Survey, Part I; So, Where Are My Posts?; Lessons Learned from Heart Attacks 3 & 4; and 2 Heart Attacks Too Soon, Part I

Can you call a blog that hasn’t even reached its first anniversary “Ol”??? Hmmm….

When I started this blog, I had two “content” goals: A) To honestly write what was going on in my life (with maybe a few exaggerations thrown in just for “laughs”) and B) To make it something relevant, useful, or entertaining to my readers so that they would also work on being “a work in progress.” The last goal is more difficult to attain, since many of you simply read my blog and move on in your daily lives. That is perfectly fine with me, but it does sometimes make it difficult to gauge whether I’m getting to that last goal or not. Soooo….thanks to all of you who so graciously answered my little survey! There were no incentives for free, cool stuff from MIP because A) I have no free, cool stuff to offer yet and B) I have no budget for “promotion” right now! So, those who answered the survey were doing it just to be nice (or because they were tired of me bugging them about it).

Why a survey now? Readership of MIP has been way up since my latest health adventures, causing me to rethink how I approach my posts and the health adventures have inspired a novel! This novel is demanding considerable amounts of draft time, which will continue, most likely, for the foreseeable future. Thus, I can’t post 6 times a week and also work on it with any regularity. (And, contrary to popular opinion, I do have a life outside of writing.)

So, what’s a girl to do? Ask her readers what they like and don’t like. I was shooting for about a 10% response rate—the typical response rate for surveys sent out the way I sent out mine. I actually received a 13% response rate! Yay! Graduate statistics was not my favorite course in my master’s degree, however, I did learn enough to know that A) Surveys simply emailed or promoted on social media with no incentives rarely yield a high “return rate” and B) That surveys sent to my readers are likely to be skewed in my favor. So yes, I’m taking these results with a “grain of salt.”

Here’s the first part of what you told me:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest score, my blog posts are “liked”, on the average, at an 8.55! I’ll take that. Thank you, kind readers.
2. 60% of you feel the blog site is very engaging. That means a lot to me, since I went through hundreds of designs before settling on the one I use. That probably means a lot to the DSL, too, since he suffered through that process with me and then “tailored” it for my readers. And as I realize something that’s not “working well,” he continues to tweak it for me.
3. 80% of you felt the blog site was either extremely easy or very easy to navigate. I do feel we still have a little work to do in this area (and some of it I just can’t afford right now!), but I think this says that we’re getting there!
4. As for improvements, 85 % of you said to keep the humorous posts coming. Guess I’d better have some more heart attacks or really polish my funny bone, hunh? 80% of you said to keep the Word of the Week feature. I can do the Word of the Week posts in my sleep, honestly (No jokes about my definition attempts looking like I’m writing them from my nightmares, please). 75% of you said to keep the Lessons Learned series going and to keep the serious posts, as well. Whew! That’s a relief because some days I’m just not feeling silly and I like doing the Lessons Learned stuff anyway.

Tomorrow’s Post: More results and…my thoughts about them…

New to MIP? May I suggest: So, Where Are My Posts?, Lessons Learned from Heart Attacks 3 & 4, 2 Heart Attacks Too Soon, Part I,  and 2 Heart Attacks Too Soon, Part II

Because of recent events in my life and because it has forced me to change how and what I write, would you please be a sweetheart and take a 10-question (largely multiple-choice) survey for me on what you think of maryanninprogress.com? The survey is produced by surveymonkey.com, so you can be assured the link below is safe for your computer. I tried to embed the survey here, but it’s not cooperating (Probably blogger issues–not the survey itself!). Thank you so much. Your feedback is tremendously important to me!

Click here for the survey.