It’s 2014 already!  Which means it’s a new start for everyone, a time to improve a little bit.  And I certainly intend to improve my blogging.  That brings me to the point of this article: analyzing my 2013 stats.

But my yearly round-up isn’t just about stats!  No, I’ve always thought this blog is more than just stats so I want to share with you posts I thought were particularly good/enjoyed writing as well.  Yet in keeping with my tradition I’ll introduce the posts based on statistics first.

The 5 Best Posts (Traffic)

1.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome  (5,076 hits)

2.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal  (3,287 hits)

3.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton  (1,646 hits)

4.  The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself  (1,642 hits)

5.  The Giver by Lois Lowry  (823 hits)

(These are just the views for 2013, not all time.)

The thing I find so interesting about the top 5 posts is that if you look to The Best and Worst of 2012 it turns out my review of The Outsiders had more hits when I had fewer followers than it has this year.  It only has 1,646 hits compared to 2,615 throughout all of 2012.  I’m happy my old posts are still getting decent traffic but it’s interesting how that’s gone down.  Another interesting thing is that The Outsiders was my top post last year with just 2,615 hits.  This year my top post has over 5000 hits.  I think it’s due in part to my “Best and Worst of…” series but also because the post has simply been shared lots and I’ve had more traffic overall this year. Continue reading →