I’m not half as competent with numbers as I am with letters, but there’s something about a good statistic that lifts my heart nonetheless. There’s one result in particular that’s cheered me up, but first, history lesson.

In April this year my hours at work were reduced, which was a blow for obvious reasons. I set about looking for another job, particularly ones in the field I most want to work in – games journalism, of course – but it’s a massively competitive field and I didn’t have enough experience to get anywhere, despite having written about 100,000 words for Nintendo Life in a few years.

Doing fewer hours at work meant more time to focus on things I wanted to do, so I saw it as an opportunity to establish myself and gain extra experience. I made a start on May 1st, with a target of 5 articles a day and 2 at weekends, and since then I’ve had great fun doing it.

Anyway, you’re not here for my wild anecdotes, you want those statistics I promised. Here, let me get to the point.

Since May 1st, our readership has almost doubled. We’re going through the biggest period of growth I’ve known on the site, from ~500,000 visits to nearly a million visits a month. We’re now probably the biggest independent Nintendo news and reviews website. I’m certainly not claiming I’m solely responsible for this – the Nintendo Life team is a success story in itself – but it’s nice to know I contributed.

Now I write for Movemodo and KINECTaku I feel I’m making progress and am on my way to establishing myself as a decent writer. Next year we launch Sega Fusion, and I’ll be heavily involved in that as well, of course.

It’s very, very exciting. Even more exciting than statistics. Maybe.