Three years of blogging

Steph P. Bianchini December 14, 2016 12 Comments

This week makes it three years The Earthian Hivemind has started blogging, and I’m glad to say I’m enjoying it each year more. The thing that makes me happiest is the fantastic people I have “met” thanks to this blog, fellow bloggers but also speculative fiction writers and scholars of disciplines of common interest (mainly astrophysics and biology, but also history). As usual, the “anniversary post” is the occasion to do some housekeeping and publish quick reports.

Stats: in 2016 numbers have kept growing, especially in terms of comments, while in terms of visits I’ve passed the magic number of 10,000. Ground to celebrate, indeed – I’ll open a bottle of my favourite Taittinger. Interestingly, I have noticed a shift in my audience, in the past more polarised between Europe (where I’m based) and East Asia (for a series of reasons) while in 2016 more than half of the visitors have been from the States. I think this is also due to the new acquaintances made online, and I can’t but be grateful for their interest.

Content: as in previous years, posts were roughly divided between fiction and science. Fiction consisted mainly of reviews of books, movie and TV series, and participation to some blog memes such as Teaser Tuesday. Manga represented another category, which is probably going to grow in future. Science covered here was mainly space and astrophysics, this year like in the past, and, again, it’s probably going to be even more present next year, for reasons I’ve explained below.

Plans for the future: I don’t promise to increase the weekly frequency, but I’ll try nonetheless to be more present. One thing for sure, the number of scientific posts is going to grow, since I have just signed with a UK academic publisher for a book about space industry and near-future scenarios of human presence in the Solar System. It’s due early 2018, and this means I’ll share here on the blog some of my early findings / considerations [btw: my academic publications come under another family name, which was the one I used at the beginning of my career. For reasons of consistency and citation arithmetic, I’ve decided to keep it that way, even though afterwards I’ve added my mother’s surname to the rest. To make things even more confusing, my byline for fiction is a completely different one. But with four nationalities in the household, it was somehow to be expected 🙂 ]. And talking about fiction, this year I’ll probably decide to post a long-overdue author page. I’ve been told I have to, and it’s a good idea to keep focus.

A final word: thanks, everybody, for the great support you’ve given me and the precious suggestions offered. You’re amazing, all of you. I hope I’ll be able to reciprocate your help and keep deserving your trust.