40 Million Is A Really Big Number

Since the start of the year I've been counting down the days knowing that this milestone was just around the corner. Today it finally happened. As of January 12, 2017 the content on Editing Luke has now officially been seen by over 40 million people around the world.  

What makes this an especially exciting achievement is that this has all happened in the last 5 years. Despite starting this website on May 31, 2007, I didn't actually begin seriously tracking my analytics until late 2011. Amazingly, over 10 million of these views came from 2016 alone.  

You might be asking yourself how is a number like this possible with my relatively modest social media following? The answer is actually pretty simple. Longevity and Google image searches. 

Editing Luke is about to turn 10 years old in a few months time and since 2007 I've shared nearly 2100 posts on this site. The back catalog of content includes work I did as a film student, multiple photo sets spanning North America, my numerous video productions, contract projects, journals about filmmaking, concert photography, road trip adventures, as well as my incredibly popular posts about Medicine Hat and Alberta at large (just to name some of the highlights). 

A photo posted by Luke Fandrich (@editingluke) on Jan 7, 2017 at 2:00pm PST

When my production company (including this website) became my full time job in 2014 I became even more strategic about getting my work seen to attract more business. I made a concerted effort to improve the quality of what I shared, I targeted bigger and more varied audiences, and I challenged myself to be more efficient and productive with my time. On the surface it may seem simple, but making this work hasn't come easy. Even still.  

At the end of the day 40 million is still just a number, but I'm genuinely humbled by it. It makes me feel like my persistence has really paid off. Despite reinventing myself numerous times and having lots of excuses or reasons to quit over the last decade, building Editing Luke has turned out to be one of the greatest personal investments I could've made as a student. 

For all you other dreamers out there, let this be a lesson that today is the day to start. One night in late May back in 2007 I was just a film student in a dorm who decided it might be fun to start a website. I hoped a few people might see my work. Well, so far so good.