The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries #189
What went down on January 1st 2025, how #TryStoryGraphForJan is going, a welcome reality TV escape, and an upcoming Instagram Live with an NYT bestselling author!
January 1st 2025
It was THE BIG DAY!
We had our servers ready. We’d had some real-life test runs. We were feeling fairly confident our performance would be fine and that we’d be able to handle the New Year surge. 💪🏾
But…while the app and website seemed to be generally working well for some, albeit a little bit slowly, others couldn’t use StoryGraph at all. Pages would take forever to load or just…never load.
We couldn’t figure out what was going on! There was no consistency in the location of the affected users, nor was there any consistency as to where StoryGraph would work: some would say they couldn’t get on the app, but the website was super fast. Some vice versa. For some neither would work… 🫠
What was going on? We knew our servers had the spare capacity… This didn’t make sense. 😩
Rob continued to dig and eventually found the culprit!!
Turns out Cloud 66, the platform we use to deploy the app, was effectively setting a cookie in every user’s browser/device, which was essentially saving which web server was last visited by them, and then sending them there again the next time they tried to access the app.
Looking at our load balancing dashboard, the load was indeed not evenly spread between our new servers, but more concentrated amongst the original three. 😱
Once we got rid of that cookie app-wide and waited for the load to distribute more evenly, we watched as people’s performance issues went away! ✨
The next day we hit a new “Current Visitors” record and the app stayed at its normal speed! 🥹
Once again, we only made it to number 2 in the US Books iOS App Store.
We were hoping for number 1 again, but alas, it was not to be! Next time!
#TryStoryGraphForJan…
…is going very well, if I do say so myself. 😌
It took me about a week to get my act together, coming off of the back of the New Year rush (and the all-nighters that preceded it).
And then, wanting to avoid a repeat of my personal disappointment from December, I was bold:
So, now I had to get stuff out, and so far, we’ve:
Launched a new filter menu option for book format
Implemented a new-look reviews section on the book page
Tweaked the new homepage (which had gone live just before the New Year)
Set up the beginnings of being able to customise the Current Reads section of the mobile homepage
I still haven’t fully got my act together…
…but I’m getting there!
A “Real” Deadline
Nearly all of my deadlines, including this January one, are self-imposed. However, I’ve recently received news of something very exciting, and while it does eat into a few days of my time in January, one way I could look at it is that it gives me a very real deadline of February 5th. 👀
If everything goes to plan, I’ll be able to share more in the next issue! 🤞🏾
The Traitors UK
Amidst all of my work, I do make time for breaks!
One of my favourite shows, The Traitors UK, is back for its third season, and has been a great way to switch off for an hour a few times each week. I get so immersed!
Anyone else a fan of the UK franchise specifically?
Live With Tomi Adeyemi This Friday!
I noticed that New York Times Bestselling author Tomi Adeyemi had started a new Instagram account, @thewritersroadmap, where she’s been sharing tips to get people into a writing habit this year.
I reached out to see if she’d be interested in an Instagram Live show to discuss the initiative and she agreed!
So, I’ll be going live on Instagram with Tomi on Friday January 17th at 12pm PT/3pm ET/8pm GMT. Definitely tune in if you’re an aspiring writer who wants to finally get started on that book! ✨
What I'm reading
My friend, Rita, and I have gotten into this lil’ tradition. We go to a bookstore together in December and buy for the other a book that was a fave of the year that the recipient knows nothing about. We have to read our new book some time in Q1 - without reading the blurb (which I never do anyway) - and then arrange a time to discuss.
When Rita held up Nathan Hill’s Wellness to me and said: “What do you know about this?”, I replied: “Absolutely nothing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it.” Perfect!
I’ve really enjoyed this book so far and am looking forward to finishing it today!
A lot of my top potential picks weren’t available in the store we went to so I ended up getting Rita Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan.
Have a great week,
Nadia