10,000 downloads
Not really a big deal, but I noticed reaching 10,000 downloads on SSRN today. The % of those papers that were actually read — well that’s another story.
Law review articles aren’t much read — but they when they are read (like when they end up being useful for a case before a court, or for someone else’s research) they are read really intensely. So writing them, as compared to other articles, is kind of a strange business — you can’t expect alot of readers, but then you may have some very intense ones. They may also show up after you are dead (I often rely on writings from the early 20th and 19th centuries.)
Academic articles are also kind of a lottery. Most simply wash through and become history. But the odd article becomes an absolute classic, and changes the field. In advance it is impossible to say which will happen, though the former is all you can bet on.
The same is probably true of books and magazine articles. As an author, it is easier to take comfort in knowing you have alot of readers. But in truth, especially in popular writing, most of your readers, a few years from now, won’t remember a single word.