Tagged: statistics
The Best and Worst of October 2013
Overall, I’d say October was a pretty awesome month for me. In real life I got to scare children on two separate occasions and read some pretty awesome books. Blog-wise I’m doing better than ever. October 2013 has been my second best month of all time in terms of stats. I have received 6,779 views and that includes 4,416 unique views. My best month is still September 2012 when I received 6,927 views, but I’m very pleased with my progress.
So what were my best posts this month? Let’s take a look:
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
4. Discussion: Blogging Pet Peeves
As my regular readers know, none of these are new except for my blogging pet peeves discussion post. So why did I have so many views this month? Well, looking at the number of hits on the article ‘Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal’ it’s almost six times the number of hits for the #3 slot. The same goes for my Hunger Games article. Game of Thrones, both the book series and the TV show, is still wildly popular so there’s no surprise there. And the Catching Fire movie is coming out soon, so it’s not really all that surprising that that particular article is picking up. The fact that The Hunger Games is a popular novel study book doesn’t hurt either.
Okay, so the best articles were pretty much my usual ones. Which were the worst?
1. Lady of Palenque: Flower of Bacal by Anna Kirwan
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
3. Genghis: Lords of the Bow by Conn Iggulden
4. Awful Egyptians by Terry Deary
This is the first time any book by Roald Dahl has appeared on my 5 worst list so it’s a landmark month in both the best and worst lists. The other books are either older novels or were just plain unpopular even when they first came out. Really, I’m not all that surprised by any of the ones on this list other than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In the spirit of Halloween, here’s a picture that sums up my most awesome day:
This is at the end of a long 3 or so hours of scaring children. I swear my hair looked better at the beginning of the local haunted house. (For those of you that are curious I’m the dumb-looking redneck zombie on the right. On the left is a bookish friend of mine that’s also a huge fan of The Walking Dead and scaring children.)
The Best and Worst of August 2013
It’s hard to believe August and therefore summer are over. Here in Saskatchewan we had absolutely miserable weather for 3/4s of the summer and it’s only really been nice these past two, maybe three weeks. Oh well, that’s life I guess.
Anyway, August was a bit of a hectic month for me. Life-related things took over so I didn’t get as many books reviewed as I would have liked, an author suggested I kill myself and I ran a few giveaways. August was also my second most successful month in overall statistics since I reached 6,545 views with 3,899 unique views. That’s pretty good for me, especially considering that I just reached my 500 follower milestone. I hope to hit my 500 review milestone this year as well!
But what were my most popular posts this month? Let’s take a look at the statistics:
1. The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself
2. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. The Ugly Side of Book Blogging: A Particularly Bad Example
5. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
None of these are a surprise, especially the first one. The reaction from the book blogging community to that particular incident was both swift and relatively severe. I know it inspired a lot of fellow bloggers to start ‘do not read’ lists, which is good considering what the author did. I’ll just leave it at that. The other posts are either old favourites, ones with good SEO **coughGOTcough** or ones to do with my little author trouble. None of the ones appearing on this list are surprising in the least.
So what were my worst posts this month, you ask? Well:
1. Just Thought You’d Like to Know
2. The Mad Reviewer is Open for Submissions
3. Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer
4. The Princess, The Crone and the Dung-Cart Knight by Gerald Morris
5. The Surprising Benefits of Book Reviewing
Really, there are no surprises here either. These posts are either really dated like the first one back when I celebrated my 50th review or are just unpopular books. It’s too bad since the two books on here are good, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Seeing as no book/post is on the 5 worst list every month I won’t lose any sleep over it.
That’s how my August was. How was yours? How did you enjoy the summer? Was it warm where you live? Did you find any good books?
The Best and Worst of April
Well I’m happy to report that my total views are up since March, reaching 3,748 instead of 3, 548. Part of that I credit with the fact I reviewed books by authors who publicized my posts and the fact that I had a huge giveaway in conjunction with Carla Hanna. Giveaways always bring up statistics.
Enough about that for now. What were the most popular posts for April?
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. Giveaway: Starlet’s Web & Starlet’s Run by Carla J. Hanna
3. End of Days by Eric Walters
5. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
I definitely have my theory as to why my Hunger Games article soared to the top this month: a teacher is using it in their curriculum. How do I know this? I followed the link that was giving me so many referrals and logged in as a guest on Owensboro Public Schools Moodle (an online correspondence course tool). It seems my article is being used to help teach The Hunger Games to students and that makes me very, very happy. I suspect some school(s) is/are doing a novel study about Eric Walters’ End of Days because it fits in with the themes that are supposed to be covered in most curricula. As for the others, they’re very popular books or giveaways; those things normally get plenty of traffic.
So if The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome is at the top, what are some of the bottom ones?
1. Kaiulani: The People’s Princess by Ellen Emerson White
2. Why Books Should be Rated on a Logarithmic Scale
3. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
5. Lady of Palenque: Flower of Bacal by Anna Kirwan
What’s not surprising is seeing two books from The Royal Diaries on here, but I’m disappointed that Margaret’s hilarious guest post Why Books Should be Rated on a Logarithmic Scale isn’t doing so well. It’s definitely not for a lack of effort or creativity on her part, but I suppose it isn’t all that clicky (not a lot of keywords people search for). As for The Host and Extras, they’re not exactly the most popular books around, but with The Host movie coming out you’d think there’d be more traffic. Oh well; it wasn’t the most flattering review anyway.
That’s how my April went. How was yours? Anything new going on with you guys?
The Best and Worst of November
It’s already December, so let’s take a look back and reflect on November, shall we? For starters, I just want to say that overall traffic is down this month, likely due to the travelling madness Thanksgiving causes in Americans. (How dare you people want to spend time with your family!) However, the good news is that in October I had 5, 421 views while in November it was only slightly down at 5, 346. Not that bad, considering. So what articles were the most popular in November? Let’s take a look:
1. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
5. Ark Angel by Anthony Horowitz
If you’re thinking this sounds familiar, you’re absolutely right. A quick look back at October shows that all 5 articles that were at the top then are still at the top now. The only difference is the order. So what about the bottom articles?
1. The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova
3. The Horus Road by Pauline Gedge
4. The Necromancer by Michael Scott
Once again you’ll notice that the bottom 5 are rarely consistent. Not one of these articles I listed above has made an appearance on the worst 5 before. The only really surprising things are that The Necromancer and Uglies are part of the 5 ‘worst.’ I guess Michael Scott isn’t as popular now that his series ended and Uglies is an older YA book. Maybe the current generation will discover it like I did.
That’s how my November went. How was yours?