Tagged: blogging
The Mad Reviewer: Origins
A Big Thank You to the Following Authors
Not only is it you guys, my readers, that make blogging possible, it’s the wonderful authors I interact with. I must admit that not every author has been the most pleasant person I’ve ever worked with, but they were definitely anomalies. All the same, there are some amazing authors who have left big impressions on me because of their kindness, which is why I would like to thank the following people:
Andy Szpuk, Andrew Levkoff, Matt Myklusch, Tara West, Krystal Wade, John Heldt, Zeinab Alayan, Michelle Hansen, Steve Poling, Marcus Matherne and Henry Venmore-Rowland.
If I’ve left any people out it’s definitely my own fault and is more of a reflection of my poor memory than of anything else. But a thanks like that is very generic, which is why I want to thank every one individually:
Andy Szpuk: Thanks so much for asking me to review your book. It has now finally returned from my father and my uncle and they both loved it, which is a huge achievement since they’re both more critical than I am.
Andrew Levkoff: Thank you for the amazing interview and for being the first author I actually ‘knew’ whose book I reviewed.
Matt Myklusch: I can’t thank you enough for sending along free signed copies of the last two books in your trilogy. Thank you for paying the shipping to Canada and for the great interview.
Tara West: Thanks for being so cooperative and taking the time and money to send me a physical copy of your book. I can’t wait to do a giveaway with you next year!
Krystal Wade: Well, what can I say? I’m glad you contacted me after seeing my review and agreeing to not only do two interviews with me, but to give me access to bonus content for your upcoming books. You’re still cruel for torturing me about Wilde’s Meadow, though.
John Heldt: Thank you for contacting me to review your first book and now the second book in your trilogy! I admit that I really did have my doubts when I saw the time travel premise, but you pulled it off so well.
Zeinab Alayan: Thank you for everything! The giveaway, the interview, for contacting me to review your book in the first place…I would have missed out on an amazing book if you hadn’t.
Michelle Hansen: You had the courage to contact a reviewer like me about my good review of your book and I really admire you for taking that chance. Thank you for helping me host my first-ever giveaway and for doing such an amazing interview.
Steve Poling: Where do I start? Thanks for doing an interview and being so generous when it came to handing out prizes for your giveaway. I look forward to reading your work in the future.
Marcus Matherne: Thank you for brightening my day with My Status Update Journey! Not many books can make me smile so much, but yours did and I hope it gets the attention it deserves online.
Henry Venmore-Rowland: Thank you for not judging me for my stupidity when I asked you about Septimius Severus when you had actually written about Aulus Caecina Severus. Yes, I know, two completely different people. After I sounded like a complete moron you still agreed to an interview and I’m very grateful for that. Maybe I’ll find time to read your book soon!
So here’s a big thank you to everyone! Thank you for making my book reviewing experience awesome and for making all of the hard work worth it.
What would you like to see in the new year?
2013 is almost upon us, which is a really scary thought. In the new year I’m going to be doing an ‘origins’ post on my blog’s one year anniversary (January 13), but I really have no new ideas for the new year. That’s where you guys come in. You’re the ones that keep me blogging, so what would you like to see different? Just take a few seconds of your time to click on your choice in the poll and maybe leave a comment explaining your choice. After all, there’s always room for improvement and you’re the ones that keep The Mad Reviewer going.
My Commenting Policy
In case you didn’t know, during my 3 day hiatus a couple of weeks back, I updated my comment policy. I know most people don’t check this tab regularly (and in all honesty, why should they?), so whenever I change the guidelines I’ll be posting them here on my main page. Here they are:
“Everything on my blog is my own opinion, except for comments made by others (which are theirs). I try to be a fair and light-handed moderator, but any spamming or trolling will be deleted without a moment’s hesitation. Here are some general guidelines to read before you comment:
1. Feel free to debate with me or any other commenters. However, your comment will be deleted if the debate degenerates into personal attacks, bigotry and/or racism, sexism, etc.
2. No swearing in the comments! I try to keep my blog as family friendly as possible, as it is a YA blog.
3. Don’t say anything in the comments you wouldn’t say in front of the person you respect most in real life.
4. Stay on topic.
5. No one is perfect, but do try to use proper grammar and check your spelling. I am constantly amazed by the superior quality of commenting on my blog and I would like to keep things this way.
Any violations of these policies can result in deleted comments, temporary suspensions or a permanent commenting ban. The degree of violation is what determines your punishment. Minor infractions = chastisement, edited or deleted comments. Major infractions = suspensions or bans.”
Lately I’ve received some one-liner comments in which a person says “Great article I totally agree!” and gives a link to their site. This is not acceptable. It is shameless self-promotion and in the future I will be calling people out on it. In the past, I simply deleted the whole comment, but from now on I will be deleting the link to your page (in your comment and profile) and adding in one of my own editing comments. Don’t you appreciate the special treatment? Not everyone takes time to embarrass trolls personally.
Despite this slightly annoying one-liner trend, as I state in my actual policy, I am constantly amazed at the quality of comments I receive. For the most part, they are well thought out and bring up some very good points on both articles and book reviews. The excellent grammar and spelling are also very much appreciated, since everyone here knows that those are two of my biggest pet peeves.
I really do appreciate the thought and time people put into comments. Thanks guys. You’re awesome.
A note on tomorrow: On Saturday it is my birthday. My birthday is the only day out of any given year I will ever stray away from my book discussion/reviewing mandate. The article tomorrow has a bit of bad language and is on a topic I feel very strongly about. This isn’t going to be your typical Mad Reviewer-style rant; it’s sort of a throwback to an article I wrote a few years ago on the same topic, which caused the proverbial crap to hit the fan. If you get offended easily, I would advise you to not check in on Saturday. Trust me, it’s for the best.
The Best and Worst of August
In case you’re not familiar with my “The Best and Worst of…” series, here’s the deal: every month I reflect on my statistics and tell you the top 5 most viewed posts and the top 5 least viewed posts—the best and worst of that month. So what was popular and what wasn’t in August? Well, here are the top 5 articles and reviews (site announcements are not counted) for August:
1. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Although school doesn’t start until September 4 here in Saskatchewan, in some places in America (where most of my traffic is from) it has already been in session for a few weeks. This is why all of my top posts seem to be from students doing homework research for novel study as all four of the books listed here are typical novel study novels.
School being back in session is also why my overall traffic is up from 4, 350 views in July (when everyone is on vacation) to 4, 846 in August (a larger spike than I predicted). It helps that I broke a personal record for views per day, which now stands at 305. That doesn’t sound like much and really, it isn’t, but it smashed my old record of 246 views in one day. The weirdest part of that record? It was broken on a Thursday, which is traditionally one of my worst days for traffic, aside from Sundays.
Well, enough about views per day, let’s bring on the five worst posts of August!
1. The Bad Queen by Carolyn Meyer
2. YA Release Dates to Look Forward to
3. Emperor: The Field of Swords by Conn Iggulden
4. Some Thoughts on the YA Genre
5. Isabel: Jewel of Castilla by Carolyn Meyer
I’m not surprised at all to see two Carolyn Meyer books on the bottom 5 because despite being a great historical fiction writer, her popularity has waned over the years. ‘Ya Release Dates to Look Forward to’ is no surprise either because most of the dates listed are now irrelevant as the books have been released by now!
‘Some Thoughts on the YA Genre’ is sort of misleading at #4 because although it didn’t gather many views here on my blog, Mark over at The Masquerade Crew used it as a syndicated post and soon my timeline was flooded with people tweeting about it. I assume that at least half of the people tweeting about it actually read it, so that’s more than enough to put it out of the bottom 5.
Well, that’s it for August! My overall traffic is up now and I expect it to spike again as pretty much all schools will be in session at the end of the long weekend. September will also feature more guest posting than usual because Caleb from 20four12 and I have worked out an arrangement that sees us guest posting for each other every other Friday. My first post for him will be on September 7, then he will post for me on the 14th and so on and so forth.
If you’re looking to guest post for The Mad Reviewer, please read this article. I look forward to hearing from you soon!