Tagged: book blog stats

The Best and Worst of October 2014

I had another exhausting Halloween of scaring kids and then organizing a local dance, but overall I’d say October was pretty good.  The good weather is holding here in my corner of Saskatchewan and although work is getting slower, the construction industry never stops around here.  Add to the fact that The Walking Dead is back on and you’ve got the recipe for a pretty decent month in my life.

It was so good that I re-opened my review requests and have been getting some awesome submissions.  It also didn’t hurt my stats as I received 7,317 views including 4,778 unique views.  That’s pretty good considering September was awful, with 4,861 total views.

So what were the most popular posts this month?

1.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

2.  How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour

3.  Best Seller by Martha Reynolds

4.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

5.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

The only new one on this list is my 3 star review of Best Seller by Martha Reynolds.  It’s nice to not only get extra views from a blog tour, it’s also nice to know that some authors actually care about their reviews and promote the heck out of them.  Even if they’re generally positive but not the most flattering ever.  I can definitely appreciate that.  None of the other top posts in October were a shocker, but it’s nice to see a new post reach the top 5.

So what were my worst posts this month?

1.  Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer

2.  The Eagles’ Brood by Jack Whyte

3.  Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

4.  Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn

5.  Kane Chronicles: The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan

As with my past bottom 5 lists, none of these are really a surprise and I don’t think many of them have made repeated appearances on the list.  Pretties by Scott Westerfeld has appeared before and that’s a shame because it’s a very good book.  However, the others haven’t been on before and they are older/less popular books in general so it’s not all that surprising.

So overall, my October was pretty good.  How was yours?

 

 

The Best and Worst of September 2014

September was a slow month traffic-wise, with only 4,861 views in total and with about 3,401 of those being unique page views.  That’s down from even August, which would be surprising except that the same thing happened last year.  However, once schools start their novel studies of The Hunger Games I think I can safely expect more views on my usual articles.

So what were the best articles in this pretty pathetic 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.  The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself

5.  Discussion: The Most Overhyped Book (For You)

For the first time in a while, we have a discussion in the top five.  Considering the topic, it’s not all that surprising, but it is nice to see something new up there.  My author article about a certain jerk was also strangely popular, which leads me to believe that someone Googled his name and the word spread through their circle of friends.  Bringing up the incident in question isn’t my favourite thing ever, but if it keeps future reviewers from being victimized, I don’t mind all that much.

And what were the worst articles this month?

1.  Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray

2.  Parsifal’s Page by Gerald Morris

3.  The Forever Song by Julie Kagawa

4.  Short Story: The Princess of Egypt Must Die by Stephanie Dray

5.  Now You See Them, Now You Don’t by Gordon Korman

Stephanie Dray is one of my favourite new authors, so it kind of hurts to see that two of her pieces of work were on the worst list.  But I’m not going to worry about it too much unless her name remains consistently on the list, which no author’s has in the past.  The ‘worst’ articles of the month change around, providing a nice contrast to the ‘best’ articles, which seem to never change.  It’s always nice to know that there’s something predictable out there.

So how was the month of September for you guys, life-wise and stats-wise?