September was a month of contrasts — like mixing bitter coffee with too much sugar, sometimes energizing, sometimes a little too much. Let’s take a lap through the numbers, wins, and misses before peeking into October’s plans. And yes, we’ll sprinkle in some hump day knowledge because the calendar deserves its quirks celebrated too.
🎨 Sales & Uploads
Let’s start with the blunt fact: Redbubble sales were down 100%. The culprit? I didn’t upload any new art in September. A self-inflicted wound, but an easy fix going forward — feed the beast, and the beast feeds you back.
📘 Medium Blog
Here’s where things perk up:
- Earnings: Up 17%
- Views: Down 6%
- Reads: Flat
- Followers: Up 52% (hello new readers!)
The top-performing pieces haven’t budged from last month:
- Swagger vs. ReDoc: The Ultimate Showdown of API Documentation Titans
- 10 Politically Incorrect Jokes That Will Make You Laugh
And the top earners were:
- Jinja2: The Templating Engine That Hides in Plain Sight
- A Couple AI Prompting Tricks That Save a Ton of Time
Pattern alert: serious tech deep dives and lighthearted humor are my twin engines.
🌐 LumAIere.com & Blog
Explosive growth:
- Page views: Up 177%
- Blog views: Up 335%
- Users: Up 208%
Most popular pages:
Most viewed blog articles:
- The Chagall Windows in Fraumünster Church, Zurich (In-Depth)
- Deep Dive into Libpostal: Address Parsing & Formatting Magic
A dip across the board:
- Views: Down 15%
- Reach: Down 6%
- Followers: Down 1%
- New followers: Down 100%
- Interactions: Down 83%
- Clicks: Down 100%
- Visits: Down 14%
Most viewed posts:
Lesson: without new uploads, engagement dries up faster than a puddle in Arizona.
🐦 X.com
September was a nosedive here too:
- Impressions: Down 83%
- Likes: Down 61%
- Engagements: Down 74%
But followers were up 15%. A contradiction, but I’ll take it.
Most viewed posts:
Most viewed reply (and not even close): @grok thoughts?.
🎶 TikTok
This one’s a rollercoaster:
- Videos over 1k views: Up 400%
- Overall video views: Down 10%
- Profile views: Down 17%
- Likes: Up 76%
- Comments: Down 100%
- Shares: Up 50%
- Followers: Flat
- New follows: Down 33%
Most viewed: Gaslight and Mirrors
Second: A luminous coastal tableau at dawn
Most liked: Begin with a slow tilt from luminous, overcast sky to a calm canal
✈️ What Worked and What Didn’t
- Successful actions: Keeping the blog pipeline flowing, publishing in series (Artist + Testing). Structured content keeps readers coming back.
- Unsuccessful actions: No new art uploads tanked Redbubble and hurt social engagement.
📅 Looking Ahead to October
Expect more from the Artist Series. On the tech side, possible deep dives into:
- MirrorMaker
- Tiered storage
- Web3
- Forge (for NFTs?)
- Using Face ID or Touch ID for authentication and 2FA
🐪 Hump Day Trivia
Did you know “hump day” first appeared in print in the 1960s? The metaphor clicked because once you’re over the Wednesday “hump,” you’re rolling downhill toward the weekend. Camels may have inspired the name, but they don’t get royalties.
Art Prompt (Impressionism): A serene riverside at dusk, bathed in lavender and peach hues, where delicate ripples catch fleeting reflections of a glowing sky. Figures stroll along the bank with soft outlines, almost dissolving into the misty atmosphere. Loose, feathery brushstrokes create a dreamlike scene where light and shadow blur, evoking a fleeting, tender moment suspended in time.
Video Prompt: Begin with a wide shot of a glowing lavender-and-peach sky mirrored in the rippling river, then slowly pan across figures walking in soft focus along the bank. Transition with dissolving mist effects, letting brushstroke-like textures drift across the frame. End with the scene fading gently into a hazy glow as if memory itself were closing its eyes.
Songs to go with it:
- Shiver — Lucy Rose
- Lanterns Lit — Son Lux
Follow along for October’s stories and drop your thoughts in the comments — what should hump day art even look like?