Category: Site Announcements

Guest Post Tomorrow

Yes, I know it’s sort of sudden, but I finally got around to organizing my life.  Tomorrow author Lynne Thompson is posting a guest review.  It’s not a series I would ever pick up, so it’s great that Lynne is reviewing the series.

Speaking of organizing my life, I finally updated the ‘My Reviews’ and ‘Guests’ page.  Now I know I have had 12 guest posts and 219 book reviews.  And if you haven’t already seen, I updated my commenting policy as well as my biography on my about page.  Yes, I finally thought of some interesting things I’ve done in my life.  It only took 9 months!

The Best and Worst of September

Well folks, it’s October already.  September went fast, especially since many of my previous stat records have been smashed.  My old record for views in one day was 305, but now it’s 861.  Why?  Anne Rice herself linked to my review of Pandora on her Facebook page and her Twitter account.  I suspect it will be a while before I break that record, so let’s look at what articles gathered the most hits in September:

1.  Matilda by Roald Dahl

2.  Pandora by Anne Rice

3.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

4.  The Giver by Lois Lowry

5.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

Pandora‘s rise to #2 isn’t all that surprising because of the extra publicity it gathered.  What is surprising is that Matilda is now the top article.  Most of my traffic for the day comes from Matilda, which makes me suspect people are either revisiting their childhood or teachers are doing novel studies way earlier than they did when I was little.  Of course the bottom three are related to your typical novel studies  both in Canada and the U.S.

So we know what the top articles were, but which articles did the worst in September?

1.  Rape Girl by Alina Klein

2.  My Favourite Heroines

3.  Fly Away Home by Maggie Myklebust

4.  The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

5.  What’s New in the World of Books?

The bottom books aren’t really that surprising, but what’s interesting to me is how they keep changing from month to month.  It seems like no article/review is consistently bad, which is nice.  The book reviews on the bottom 5 aren’t surprising because they are either obscure or were once popular, but the hype died down.  The articles aren’t surprising either because ‘My Favourite Heroines’ isn’t exactly the best article I’ve written and ‘What’s New in the World of Books?’ was a current events article.

In September, I also broke my record for views in one month, which was 4, 846.  It is now 6, 927.  The publicity from Anne Rice sure helped with that, but I’ve noticed that now I’m getting more views on the average day than I used to, which is how things should be as I get more content up.

So how was September for you guys?

Vacation

To put things bluntly: I’m exhausted.  My personal life is hectic right now and my work life is just as bad.  That’s why I will be taking today (Friday) and the weekend off.  I need to catch up on reading the books authors have been sending me.  Some of them have been waiting for months.  I also need to catch up on my role as content editor for Mark of The Masquerade Crew’s anthology.

However, I will be coming back on Monday refreshed and with tons of new ideas for posts.  To kick off the start of a new ‘era’ on The Mad Reviewer, I will be publishing only articles for the week (but will be returning to my usual daily reviews the next).  These articles will be on a variety of topics.  Some will be comparing books to their movies.  Others will talk about the portrayals of historical figures in fiction.  And of course there will be one of my classic rants.  What else would you expect from The Mad Reviewer?

Thanks for your understanding and see you on Monday!

Change and Contemplation

I’ve been thinking a lot about some new things I can do to change things up here on The Mad Reviewer.  Articles, book reviews and interviews are fine, but I find that I’m getting bored with writing the same things all of the time and I’m sure you’re getting bored with reading the same things all of the time.  That’s why I searched around the internet to see if I could shamelessly steal borrow ideas from other book reviewers.  I’m not going to give too much away because I want some things to be surprises, but here are some things I’ve thought of:

  1. Articles about how certain historical figures are often portrayed in fiction, especially figures in ancient history.  I know a lot more about ancient history than I do about any other period, so expect a lot of Roman, Greek and Egyptian articles.
  2. The Best and Worst…sequels, opening lines, characters, etc.
  3. An in-depth look at books that became movies and what my opinion is of them as compared to the general consensus of fans.

However, there’s one thing I want to ask you guys:

So what do you think of these ideas?  Do you have any of your own?  You can always comment or email me if you want an article on a specific book-related topic.

Last Call for Reader Suggestions

Officially, ‘Reader Suggestion Week’ ended at 11:59pm last night, but I only received two comments, so I’m extending it just for today.

Do you want to see me review a particular book or author?  Do you have a suggestion for an article?  Would you like me to change something about the site layout to make it easier to navigate?  Do you want more or less articles, author interviews, book reviews and/or guest posts?

You guys, my readers, are what make The Mad Reviewer possible, so I want your reading experience here to be as pleasant as possible.  I’m not about to get offended if you offer me, a self-appointed reviewer/critic, some constructive criticism.  I can take what I dish out, believe me.

If you don’t want to comment below, send your suggestion through my contact page.