200+ Comments & Counting!

Here is the comment I made (in two parts) on the infamous "Names" post, reposted here on front page:

Hello everyone, Dande here, from the post at the top of this "forum." This may be a long comment, so please just hang in there! First of all, I'd just like to express how amazed and excited we in MYABC are about the phenomenon that is "The Hunger Games -- Names." 200+ comments! That is incredible, especially for a blog that has been silent for months.

At first, we were just mildly amused by all the people looking for auditions here. "Wow, there are all these people coming to the blog descibing themselves and asking about auditions! Do they think we know anything? That's so random! But look, 20 comments already!" While we thought the topic was strange, we were still happy about it, because any traffic is good traffic as far as Google is concerned. Because the internet is so big, we'd planned on having to post for months before anyone found our little blog. I emailed the whole book club squealing the first time I saw us in the top 10 on Google. Yet the "Names" phenomenon pretty quickly became rediculous (in a good way): at one point, searching for "Morris YA Book Club" got you nada, while for "hunger games peeta" (or some other characters) we were in the top 2 or 3 (This has gone done a bit since then, which makes sense. The highest we're at right now is #2 for "hunger games auditions.")

What we have been most amazed about recently, though, is how this page has morphed from audition info questions to actual discussion of the book. This is more than we could have hoped for and exactly what we were trying to do with this blog. Of course, we cannot clame any credit for this, since we've been silent. The original policy I'd layed down was to respond to each and every comment we get on this blog, but I got a little behind, and then the comments started coming in more quickly, and then--well, I hope you can see how now that would be a daunting task to undertake. That is why I am writing this long comment, as a response to all of you, to try to open up a dialogue with all the book lovers out there who've found our site. (However, I will be responding to the few comments made on the other, quieter, posts.)

Let me now explain what happened to this blog: obviously the "update" that's been on the front page is outdated and no longer accurate. First: MYABC is still alive and thriving! (Well, we get better at organizing every meeting, so even though there are bumps, I call that thriving.) It is only the blog that has been neglected (by me, as the blog is my job.) We did have that Dragonflight meeting, along with three other meetings, including one for CATCHING FIRE. I have the sound files for those meetings on my computer, the holdup is in the transcription, as it's been hard for me to find time during the school year to type up our chit-chat. But I've been making progress on that front, and hopefully (cross your fingers) the Dragonflight posts will start showing up in a few weeks, and then Catching Fire soon after, and so on. One of my biggest reasons to regret dropping the ball on this blog is that a lot of real discussion about Catching Fire has gone on here, in "Names," while our Catching Fire meeting has gathered cobwebs on my computer. But I have no doubt that you guys have plenty more to say, so hopefully there will be good discussion on those posts too, when they show up.

Which brings me to my last topic: what we're working towards on this blog in the future! Almost all of the activity on this blog has been limited to this page, which is okay and expected since there's been no new content on the blog. But we're hoping that when we start posting stuff about other books besides The Hunger Games, at least some of you will stop by the front page and check it out. Our wildest dreams for this blog, which we may not reach for years of course, is to build a community where our readers see the book that's coming up, and if they think it sounds good, read along with us so they can discuss it as the posts come up. Then, maybe, people could start suggesting books for us to read next! We welcome all comments of course, whether or not you choose to read along, and I have to admit that sometimes our members even come to our meetings without having read the book, just to talk anyway.

Thanks for sticking with me! DragonFlight soon!

--Dande Lion