So y’all, let’s have a little talk. I started ROW80 back in 2010 (!!!) because I wanted a writing challenge that was more flexible than National Novel Writing Month. I felt like it was important to give writers a place where they could get that kind of support but set goals that work for their lives. From that standpoint, ROW80 has been, I think, a huge success. We’ve developed a great little community here–and that’s the thing. We are a COMMUNITY. Communities are (or should be) inherently SOCIAL.
The original incarnation of ROW80 was blog-based because that’s how the other non NaNo challenges I’d participated in were set up–and also because I was a super active blogger back then. But the world has changed. Where those first years, we averaged 40-50k visitors over the course of a year, we now are going to be hitting less than 20k. There’s been an enormous drop in traffic to the site because blogs just aren’t how people tend to do things these days. I’ve maintained the site and the linkies (not free) all these years and coordinated sponsors every round, and over the last couple of years it’s just gotten harder to do as I’ve had more and more on my professional plate. I didn’t even manage to recruit enough sponsors for Round 3, so some of these kind, awesome people have been pinch hitting and doing double duty.
ROW80 is not going away. But it is going to change. I have made the decision to put the blog in stasis. Well, it’s not going anywhere, because there are a lot of awesome inspirational posts here, but it’s not going to be the focal point of the challenge. Instead, we’re moving things TO OUR FACEBOOK GROUP. It’s just flat EASIER to post your updates there and get comments. And it makes for more of a community-oriented focus than the way we’ve done things up to now. There will be those who complain “Oh, but I’m not on Facebook!” just as there were those who argued “Oh, but I don’t have a blog!” I’ll say the same thing now as I said then: My challenge, my rules. This is a FREE support group maintained by me and it is your choice whether to participate or not. It costs you nothing to create a Facebook account, just as it cost you nothing to create a blog for the original version of the challenge.
I want to open the doors for everybody to post inspiring things there. Memes, articles, whatever. Not only because it relieves the burden of me needing to recruit sponsors, but also because it’s YOUR community and I think you have lots of valuable things to share.
So for the start of Round 4 (October 3, 2016), we are officially moving to Facebook!
Your fearless leader,
Kait
A Round of Words in 80 Days: The Writing Challenge That Knows You Have A Life 
Absolutely fair enough, it is your party. Unfortunately the only way to play with Facebook is to use one’s own name. I’m using a pseudonym because my fiction is a bad fit with my professional career-pay-the-mortgage writing. I can’t see a way around that and Facebook seems fairly tight on this just now so I think that will, for the moment, count me out. A shame as I was delighted to find this community and was looking forward to being held to account.
All that said, I can see why you are moving. Best of luck, it is a great thing to give to your fellow writers.
Mal, I know this is late, but some of us old-schoolers are looking into a way to merge/connect the blog and Facebook group better (and hopefully we’ll find some way to make better use of our Twitter hashtag too).
Hope you’ll touch base sometime in January as we get ourselves organized and revamped (minus eyeliner… vamps don’t need THAT much eyeliner. 😉 )
Thanks Eden, that’s good of you to reply. I will check in January and see how it is all going.
Toward the end of January, if you would, please… Since I’m the one who will likely be offering my services to maintain the blog, I need a bit more time to get up to speed on things. But definitely looking forward to it…
I’m good with that. I know there’s a lot more work to do this the way you’ve always done it. Things change, and we can change right with them. See you on FB!
So when does Round 4 start?
I think Oct. 3 through Dec. 22.
Thanks!!
Well said, Kait. Thanks for all of your hard work and support over the years. As much as everyone hates change, I think that this is the way to go. Best wishes to you and I’ll be watching you on Facebook.
I don’t blame you one bit. Glad I jumped in fairly recently so that I’m not having to make a big switch. I loved Round 3. I’ve got some other projects going on right now, so I don’t foresee participating in Round 4, but I know ROW80 will be there when I next need it.