Category: Uncategorized
The Best and Worst of September 2015
Well, I’m all moved in and trying to organize my life. Posting is going to be irregular around here but I’m hoping to get back on track before December 1st. We’ll see what life has in store for me, though. As a consequence, September hasn’t been great stats-wise with only 4,839 views, including 3,015 unique views. It’s definitely a comedown from August but I’m expecting things to pick up once I begin posting regularly again.
So what were the best posts this month?
1. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
2. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
5. The Best and Worst of August 2015
Surprisingly, this is the first time one of my Best and Worst of… posts has made the top 5. I don’t know why it was so popular this month but that may be a consequence of the fact that I haven’t been posting much else. Or maybe a lot of people are suddenly wanting to start book blogs. Who knows? Other than that surprise, there’s not really much else interesting about the top 5 this time around.
What were the 5 worst posts this month?
1. “The Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer” by Carrie Ryan
2. Discussion: Pet Peeves in Fiction
4. Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn
5. My Status Update Journey by Marcus Matherne
Once again these are all older posts from my archives, mostly on books that were never really that popular or on dated discussions. The only really disappointing item on this list is my Writing Pitfalls article but I think when I get back to writing the series things will pick up. We’ll just have to see.
Well, that has bee my September. How was yours?
Lazy Sundays: Sick and Tired
Ugh, it’s one week later and I’m sicker than ever. Last Sunday I spent all day with a fever and although my fever is gone, I’ve been coughing since Monday. And it’s not getting any better. Normally a cough wouldn’t be a problem for an adult, but my asthma makes every cough even more unpleasant. And I can’t take any cough syrups since they exacerbate my asthma. Ugh again.
So tomorrow it’s off to the nearest clinic for me.
Basically: I’m miserable, tired and cranky. How has your week been? (Hopefully significantly better than mine.)
Discussion: Pinterest and Blogging
I joined Pinterest just a few months ago in part because I noticed how many referrals I was getting from it. (Not an insane amount, but a couple every day do add up over time.) So I started creating various boards of varying levels of relevance to my blog and waited. I was pleasantly surprised when my referrals from Pinterest went up, particularly from the cover images of books I reviewed that I later pinned.
So what I want to know now is this: If you’re a blogger and/or author, do you use Pinterest? Has it driven any traffic to your blog? Why or why not?
“pawan 2sadie” and More Weird Search Terms
Yes folks, it’s time for another weird search term round up. And I’ve got some pretty funny/fascinating/bizarre ones to show you this time:
pawan 2sadie
yes i am bad u know
madsex
famous people with gastroparesis
am single i need a call
look of library book
the day after i killed myself
how long to read 100 pages of nursing text book
And the winner is:
how to write a mail review
Okay, so this week’s question is: What is a mail review?
Poll: How do you prefer to shop for books?
One of the interesting things I’ve found since online shopping became popular is that many people still want to browse in physical stores. There’s a huge difference between seeing a few pictures and reading a product description and actually physically examining an object that’s in front of you. This is particularly true when it comes to books, I’ve found.
Although I do order books online from time to time, they’re usually sequels or other books in a series by an author that I know. If I’m looking for a good new read, I often want to go to a physical bookstore. I love browsing up and down the aisles, pulling out books, talking to staff and fellow book lovers about books. No matter how much companies like Amazon try to make online shopping like that, it will never be a substitute for me. Actually being in a bookstore is definitely my preferred method of shopping.
Of course, I’m in a different situation from a lot of book bloggers because I don’t actually buy ebooks. I get so many ebooks through NetGalley and directly from authors that I’ve never really felt the need to browse through the ebook sections of online retailers. I know that that’s certainly not the case for many authors and bloggers out there.
So how do you prefer to shop for books? (I know it’s not as simple as choosing online or in person but if you absolutely had to choose one method to shop for books, what would it be?)