How Not to Get Laid

Happy New Year! To the over-sexed, the under-sexed, the appropriately sexed, and the comedically sexed, I wish you a wonderful 2008. It’s been a little over a year since I launched this site, and I thought I’d take a second or two to give y’all a little update.

Since my first post in December of 2006, our community has shared a total of 95 stories (including tomorrow’s story), and have had over 55,000 visitors to the site. Not bad for a first year. You may have noticed, however, that the fall has been rather slow for us, and the frequency of postings has dropped in a major way since the summer. Here’s why:

I launched the site with a large stockpile of stories from friends, and in those early months, I was very aggressive about emailing bloggers and similar websites to get the HNTGL name out there. This was quite successful. I gave a bunch of interviews, the website got a few nice write-ups, and with each of these came more traffic and more stories. Due to my significant backlog and aggressive networking, I was able to post about three stories a week, and at the time, I thought this was just swell. My hope was that once we got HNTGL off to a good start, the site would spread on its own, and I would no longer have to worry about pestering strangers for stories.

I was partly right and partly wrong. Sometime over the summer, I realized that this venture was monopolizing my time at the expense of my other (actual moneymaking) work, and I decided I needed to let go a bit, to let the site sink or swim based on its own merits. I stopped my marketing crusade. Sadly, the stories started to come less frequently. But you didn’t! With no effort on my part, HNTGL started getting blogrolled on more and more sites. Readership even improved, very slowly but steadily.

Which brings us to the central paradox (and perhaps, admittedly, the major flaw) of HowNotToGetLaid.com. People love to read stories about not getting laid. But (it seems) only a small percentage of those people are willing to share stories about themselves. Reading is easy. Sharing requires effort. So there you are.

I would love to go back to posting three stories a week (or more), but I can only post what I’m sent. Which leaves the ball in your court. This is your website. If you want to see more stories, please keep sending them in. Spread the word to your friends, dare everyone you know to share a dark story from their past, and see who is up to the challenge. Remember that a two sentence story can be every bit as rewarding as a 1000 word opus, so this needn’t be a huge time commitment. If you really want to go all the way supporting the site, buy a T-shirt and wear it out in public. Spread the word and the mission however you can.

I’d like to thank those of you who have contributed stories, those of you who have blogrolled me, those of you who rate stories and add comments, and even those of you who just visit the site to read for a bit and then disappear quietly into the night. You have all made this a terrific first year. With a little luck and a little help, we can make it a great ‘08 as well.

peace and love,
Stewart Fox

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