So let’s conclude with our end-of-the-year report.
The posts with most viewers here were the ones about politics, AI and immigration. The least viewed ones were the ones about travel or obscure movies.
I am not sure what it means. I normally prefer to write about travel or obscure movies, but most people obviously prefer political rants, and I can understand that.
Viewership and number of subscribers have stationed at around 100. I’m not good at marketing and I have little understanding of my own audience. I don’t know what the reader wants. Any feedback? I honestly have no idea who reads this.
I read or watch very little mainstream media sites, and whatever I read there, I don’t trust. Most of what I read comes from alternative news sites, and even those, I don’t fully trust either. But most people still live in that other universe, and sometimes I forget that.
In the video channel, we have 24,000 subscribers, but viewerships have also stationed between 1,000 and 2,000, depending on the theme.
The most successful videos were, once again, the ones about war or politics. But I am trying to focus more on other issues and the culture at large. Maybe start doing interviews and some more original content — we will see. I still need to finish my documentary about Finland.
Among our self-published books, which you can buy at contrarium.org/shop or Amazon, we sold a total of 102 books. The best-seller was Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children, with a whopping 60 books sold. In second place, perhaps surprisingly, is Strindberg’s A Blue Book, with 18 books sold. Then Dark Fairy Tales, with 12 books sold, and The Snow Queen, with 5 books sold but in just a month, confirming that illustrated children’s books are usually the favourites. Then my own 2020 non-fiction book, Our Pets and Us, with 4 books sold last year as well. A few of the others sold 1 or 2 each.
We also sold several numbers of Geist magazines through the site’s shop. Not sure how many, but a few dozens. The last number came out on Spring 2023. No plans for a new magazine for the moment, but we will see.
All in all, it was not a completely bad year. Next year will be better.
In fact, everything must change. Things have remained stale for far too long.
I leave you with pictures with cats from Italy and Spain taken during the last few weeks. In the old days, pictures of cats used to be the most popular thing in the Internet. Now it’s all about promoting fear and genocides 24/7.
But things will improve — eventually.
Happy New Year to all.
