Announcing the 2014 Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge Winners

Well, I officially created the draw for the 2014 Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge winners.  I won’t keep you guys in suspense, so here are the names of the winners as well as the challenge levels they completed:

Grand Prize: Camille of Girl Meets Books; Mad Reviewer

1st Runner Up: Naila of Reading Authors; Crazy Reviewer

2nd Runner Up: Jemima Pett; Crazy Reviewer

The only person who won for the second year running is Jemima Pett, so congratulations to her!  And a huge congratulations goes to our winner, Camille, for both completing the Mad Reviewer level and for winning the draw.  Those extra entries you get for the higher levels certainly do count.  As well, congratulations are in order for Naila, who completed the Crazy Reviewer level of 52 books.

You guys all worked so hard and even if you didn’t win, you can look back on the fact that the challenge gave you extra motivation to write more reviews for your blogs.

Congratulations again to the winners!  For your prizes, contact me via email (if you have my address) or through my Contact page.  Then we can organize prize distribution.

My 2015 Blogging Goals

Yesterday I looked back at my 2014 blogging goals post and was happy to discover that I actually achieved most of what I set out to do.  In part due to luck, but also due to hard work and the fact that I set realistic, measurable goals.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about goals is that they have to be measurable so you can plan toward them or you’ll never actually get things done.

So here are the things I want to achieve in 2015:

1.  Reach 2,000 followers.

I started the year with 1,156 followers so I don’t see this as an unreasonable goal.  Once I get my posting back to a consistent pace I’ll of course attract more people (and get fewer unfollows) but I’d also like to dabble in social media a little more.  Maybe start a Pinterest or Instragram account; I still refuse to use Facebook.  Being more active on social media can’t hurt, that’s for sure.

2.  Get back to posting every day.

I fell short on the ‘post every day’ motto that I lived by for nearly two years and I think it’s time to get back on that.  It’s not a difficult thing; I’m still reading just as many books as I used to but I got lazy about reviewing them.  There’s really no excuse for this and so my goal for 2015 is to post something every day and not just have huge blank spaces on my calendar where I keep track of posts.  I’m not going to do reviews on the weekend just to make my goal but I will do more discussion posts, Lazy Sunday posts and keep on doing more articles.  Hopefully that greater variety will motivate me a little more.

3.  Hit the 750 reviews mark.

Right now I have written and published 595 reviews over the nearly 3 years of my blog being active.  By the time January 13 (my blog anniversary) rolls around I should hit 600, which means that I’ve averaged 200 books read and reviewed for three years now.  I’m hoping to keep that streak up but I also realize that I’m going to be way busier this year than I usually am in my personal life.  So I think 150 books reviewed in one year is a reasonable goal.

4.  Write more and a better variety of articles.

I’ve already started on this resolution with my Forgotten Figures series, but I’d also like to take things up a notch.  I want to publish a variety of articles on topics like blogging advice, the challenges of being a book reviewer, industry news and such.  Heck, maybe I’ll sneak in a Game of Thrones article or two in time for Season 5 so I can get a monster spike in my statistics just like last year.  Who knows?  All I know is that my goal is to write at least one well-researched article per month, preferably two.

5.  Clear my review requests and open up submissions again.

I’m actually doing pretty well on this one so far, having reviewed four of the 14 books I said I would from my last round of submissions.  I think this is in part because I’ve been pickier about what I’ll accept.  I really only accept requests that I really think I will like so it hasn’t really been hard to motivate myself to make time to read the submissions.  So my goal this year is to read and review those last ten books and open up limited submissions once again.  I can’t say yes to everyone, so I will dependably say yes to a few people.

Well, these are my blogging goals for 2015 and I hope to look back in January 2016 and say “I achieved all 5 of my goals”.  None of these are unreasonable so I think with the right amount of motivation and effort I can actually do all of them barring any unforeseen catastrophic events in my life.

But what I want to know now is this: What are some of your blogging goals for 2015 (yes, you are more than welcome to link to your posts!)?  What do you think of my goals?

 

The Best and Worst of 2014

On a purely blogging level, 2014 was an awesome success.  I cracked the 10,000 views per month mark for three months running, hit 200,00 views total on my blog with 96,000 of those coming this year alone.  My reading and reviewing challenge had so many people sign up that I couldn’t believe it and I’m getting people who took that challenge coming back in 2015.  You guys, my readers, have also been amazingly supportive and very understanding about my health and why I haven’t exactly been posting as consistently as I used to.

On a personal level, 2014 was one of my worst years.  My pain has been getting so bad that I’m barely able to exercise anymore even though I try so hard to do the few exercises I can.  My boss/mentor/substitute grandfather died, leaving a gaping hole behind at work, where everything reminds me of just how awesome he was.  I’m lonelier than ever as my only friend moved away from my town but luckily I too can finally get out of here this summer.  So while 2014 sucked on a personal level, I’m thinking that 2015 is going to be so much better.

So on to the stats analysis!

In 2014, I received a total of 97,154 views with 66,917 of those being unique views.  That’s a marked improvement from 2013, where I received 59,613 views total and 34,765 unique views.  So now my unique views outnumber my total views from the previous year.  I’m definitely hoping that 2015 will continue the trend.

The 5 Best Posts (Traffic)

1.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal  (43,174 hits)

2.  How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour  (3,790 hits)

3.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome  (3,466 hits)

4.  An Apology to Self-Published Writers  (1,096 hits)

5.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton  (910 hits)

These are just the views for 2014, mind you.  And considering that I received 97,154 views in total, the fact that 41,174 views (or 44% of my total views) were from just my Game of Thrones article is incredible.  It was a fairly decent article, but it’s not the best I ever wrote but since it has those buzzwords “game of thrones”, “game of thrones women” and “nude” I get so much search engine traffic from it it’s not even funny.  Even when the TV show is off the air, it’s still the best article pretty much every day.  That’s kind of awesome and kind of sad because there are other articles here on The Mad Reviewer.  I guess they just don’t have the same great keywords.

The 5 Worst Posts (Traffic)

1.  Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer  (17 hits)

2.  The Lacemaker and the Princess by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (17 hits)

3.  My Day Off (17 hits)

4.  And the Winner of the 1,000 Follower Giveaway is… (17 hits)

5.  The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan (17 hits)

The thing about these posts, especially numbers 3 and 4 is that they’re dated.  Those events are over now, so there’s no reason for them to really garner many hits.  As for the other posts, they’re reviews from books that aren’t popular anymore or were never popular anyway.  That’s one of the reasons why I really love it when authors actually put effort into promoting my reviews of their work: otherwise no one sees them.  I promote reviews to the best of my ability, but it’s a two-way street.  If you want reviews and you want people to actually see those reviews, you do have to promote them yourself as well.

The 5 Most Commented on Posts (Total)

1.  The Mad Reviewer Reading and Reviewing Challenge 2014 Sign Up

2.  An Apology to Self-Published Writers

3.  The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself

4.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

5.  The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge

I decided to include older posts that received comments because some of them were posted a couple of years ago but only really got comments this year.  So I did the most commented on posts in total.  What made me happy and slightly surprised was that last year’s challenge sign up was the most commented on of all.  I did have a fair number of people sign up; right now it’s a matter of seeing how many people return to verify their entries.  So far, it’s not the number I expected but I really can’t complain all that much.  Most of the other posts were either controversial articles or articles that people could directly relate to so it’s no wonder that while the top viewed post is on the most commented list, it didn’t receive the most comments.

The 5 Most Shared Posts in (Total)

1.  Best Seller by Martha Reynolds  (102 shares)

2.  An Apology to Self-Published Writers  (61 shares)

3.  Things Authors Should Know About Bad Reviews  (23 shares)

4.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal  (20 shares)

5.  Deadline by Mira Grant  (20 shares)

Out of all my statistics listed here, this list of 5 has to be the most shocking to me.  The controversial articles like my Game of Thrones article aren’t the most shared.  It’s a book review that gave the author a mediocre review that she decided to share anyway because she appreciated the time I took to review it and the fact that I offered both criticism and praise.  The reason ‘An Apology to Self-Published Writers’ is so popular is the fact that I had help promoting it, but also because authors who found it decided to share it on their sites and social media profiles.  That’s also why it got so many views this year.

My Top 5 Personal Favourite Posts

1.  Forgotten Figures: Aurelian

2.  Sempre Libera

3.  Aranya by Marc Secchia

4.  The Return of the Weird Search Terms

5. The Hunger Games and The Third Servile War

Numbers 1 and 5 are on this list because I put so much effort into them (both in research and writing) and because I enjoyed actually writing them.  Piecing history together into a coherent narrative isn’t always the easiest thing, but it is pretty darn fun.  ‘Sempre Libera’ was my usual off-topic birthday article and is on this list because it came from the heart.  The weird search term post is on because of the fact that the search terms contained within are hilarious.  People search for the weirdest things!  And, as a departure from my usual list, I included my review of Aranya by Marc Secchia because I absolutely loved that book.  It was extremely well written with characters so vivid it was as if they came alive right off the page.  I had so much fun writing that review and reading the book that I had to include it this year.

I end 2014 with 1,156 followers and in 2015 I’m hoping to at least reach 1,500.  Follower, share and comment statistics have always been more important to me than views so I’m really quite content with how my blog has done this year.  As for views, maybe next year I’ll hit 100,000 views in a single year and consistently keep my traffic above 6,000 views per month.  That’s my goal and one of the ways I’m going to achieve it is to finally get back on a regular posting schedule.  My posting was erratic because I just didn’t have any motivation about my boss’ death but I’m done mourning; he’d want me to move on and go back to my life.  This year my resolution is to post something every day, even if it’s just a little note about my activities or a cat picture.  I really do need to get back to posting every day, mostly for my own sanity.

I’m almost at 600 reviews so I’m hoping that this year I can reach at least 700, despite my hectic life post-move.  Of course I’ll be participating in my own challenge (which will be announced either this evening or tomorrow morning) so I’m going to have to do at least 102 but we’ll see how many more I can do.  My Kindle has made it way more convenient to read books in places I wouldn’t normally read but it’s just a matter of making time to review them.  That’s another thing to work on this year.

So, that was my 2014 year.  How was yours?  How were your statistics this year (if you feel comfortable sharing them)?  What was your best post in terms of traffic this year?  What was your favourite post to write?  (Feel free to link to them in the comments.)

The Best and Worst of December 2014

As is my tradition, I’m posting my monthly stats analysis early so that tomorrow I can do my full-year analysis.  This December was down from last December, with only 5,025 views total, including 3,066 unique visitors.  Seeing as my posting was erratic yet again, this isn’t really much of a surprise.  I’m happy that I actually did this well.  December is always a hectic month and in two out of three years it has been worse than the previous months because everyone wants to spend time off the internet and with their families and/or friends.

So what were the best posts this month?

1.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

2.  How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour

3.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

4.  Best Seller by Martha Reynolds

5.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

As usual, nothing new this month.  Two reviews, three of my most popular articles all make up my top 5 this month and pretty much every month.  I’m hoping to write more articles in the new year so hopefully I’ll break the streak of the same posts always making the top 5.  We’ll see.  My Forgotten Figures articles don’t seem to be doing as well as I’d hoped.  But maybe they’ll catch on.

What were the worst posts this month, then?

1.  The Commander’s Desire by Jeanette Green

2.  Genghis: Bones of the Hills by Conn Iggulden

3.  The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld

4.  What do you think makes a good book?

5.  The Sorceress by Michael Scott

I think this is the first time a couple of posts have appeared twice on the worst list: The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld and The Sorceress by Michael Scott.  They’re not really popular books that people are searching out because they’re a couple of years old.  Still, this is the first time in a long time we’ve had a repeat offender despite the relative popularity of both authors.

Well, that was my December, folks.  Stay tuned in tomorrow for how my entire year went.  But in the meantime, how was your December?  If you blog, do you notice a traffic dip in December as well or is it just me?  What was your best month in 2014?