2013 in Review (WordPress Annual Report)

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 59,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 22 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

For those of you wondering, yes I’m obviously still posting my own analysis tomorrow but this is a little preview if you’re curious.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Best and Worst of December 2013

I know that I usually save these posts for the beginning of the next month, but I have my 2013 analysis scheduled for that day.  So I’ll just analyze December in December, just like last year.

December has been an awesome month for me.  At the time of writing I have 6,149 total views, which includes 3,878 unique views.  That means that I’m up from November and seeing as I’ve had 5 consecutive months of higher-than-average stats I think I can safely call it as it is: my blog is growing.  This is in part thanks to the 41 new followers I’ve welcomed to my blog this month for a total of 633 followers!  Follower stats have always been more important to me than views so I’m very happy about this record-breaking month.

So what were my best posts this December?

1.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

2.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

3.  Calling all Authors!

4.  How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour

5.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

The usual suspects are the top two posts but I’m so happy that my speed-reading tutorial has finally taken off.  ‘Calling all Authors!’ is a big success in part because I had a lot of help with promoting it on Twitter and The Masquerade Crew.  It also helps that many authors told their friends about the opportunity, which is why I now have so many submissions for prizes for my reading challenge.

So what were my worst posts this month?

1.  Arlo and Jake Enlist by Gary Alan Henson

2.  Genghis: Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden

3.  Discussion: Favourite Book Covers

4.  The 3 Best Books to Read in the Bathroom

5.  City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

As usual, none of these really surprise me.  The book reviews are for older books/indie books and the one article in there was admittedly pretty dumb.  This is the first time a discussion post has appeared in the 5 worst articles of a month, but that’s understandable seeing as it is an older one and it was never all that popular when it was first posted.

Well, that pretty much sums up my December: awesome.  My stats are up, I’ve been averaging a little over a follower a day for the whole year and life is good.  And the funniest thing?  In 2012 December was a horrible month; my stats took a huge dive.  So now, of course, in 2013 they’re going strong.

How has your December been?

The Mad Reviewer Reading and Reviewing Challenge 2014 Sign Up

The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge ButtonThe 2013 Mad Reviewing Reading & Reviewing Challenge is still in progress of course but I’m liking it so much that I figured I may as well start people on the sign up sheet.  The challenge is the same as last year:

The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge is to read and review (either on Goodreads, Amazon or your own blog) 104 books in one year starting January 1, 2014 and ending December 31, 2014.

I’m fully aware that not everyone has time to read 104 books which is why I’ve created different levels of the challenge that you can aspire to:

1.  Mad Reviewer: 104 books in one year. (2 books a week all year.)

2.  Crazy Reviewer: 52 books in one year. (1 book a week all year.)

3.  Slightly Sane Reviewer: 26 books in one year. (1 book every fortnight all year.)

4.  Sane Reviewer: 12 books in one year.  (1 book every month all year.) Continue reading →

My Other Job

Carrie Pictures 2013 067When I asked for suggestions for new post ideas/improvements to make in the new year, a couple readers suggested doing more personal posts.  What makes me the reader I am today, my hobbies, interests, etc.  Well, here is the first of a few!

I’ve alluded to a second job that I’ve taken on in part to finance my (hopeful) trip to Book Expo America 2015.  This second job is actually building picnic tables*.  6′ and 8′ picnic tables, to be precise.  I work for an independently owned store that’s a lumber yard, hardware store and building company all rolled into one awesome package.  Unfortunately, we’ve had severe labour shortages (despite what people here in Canada say about there being ‘no jobs’) so we had to cut back on one thing the men in the yard would do all the time: make picnic tables.

It was quite a lucrative part of the business but it was time-consuming and now the few men in the lumber yard we do have are being put to better use.  So who would fill the gap in the market?  Three years after picnic table production ceased here I am, making picnic tables in my spare time.  I won’t pretend to be a gifted wood-worker but picnic tables are ridiculously simple when you get into the rhythm of things.  Having the right equipment and a more than generous staff discount on all lumber helps, I’ll admit.  But most of it is sheer stubbornness (and math).

*For those of you that were wondering: Yes, the one pictured above is one I built, not some random picture of a picnic table.