Tagged: the best and worst of
The Best and Worst of November 2013
I can’t believe it’s December already. Where did November go? Obviously it was in a sick, flu-filled haze for me but it still seemed irregularly short. Now I have to start thinking about holiday shopping. Ugh.
On a slightly more cheerful note, the good news is that yesterday (November 30th) The Mad Reviewer got its 100,000th view since January 13, 2012. I almost did a happy dance at that news because it hasn’t even been two years of blogging yet! In addition to that, in November I received 5,827 views, which includes 3,865 unique views. That’s significantly up from September, the last month where my stats weren’t inflated by a controversial post.
So what were the best articles this month?
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
4. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
Meh, none of these are a surprise. With the popularity of The Hunger Games as a novel study book as well as the popularity of Game of Thrones, it’s not that shocking that these two were vying for the #1 spot all month. I mean, the Game of Thrones article only beat The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome by 10 hits. That’s pretty good.
So what were my worst posts this month?
3. The King’s Man by Pauline Gedge
4. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
5. The Scourge by A. G. Henley
All of these listed here as the worst posts are all about pretty darn good books, especially Black Ships and The Scourge. It’s not that surprising how such good books get ignored in favour of novel study books or popular TV shows (since the GoT hits come mostly from show-related search terms). That’s just how the internet is, but it doesn’t make me any less proud of these reviews.
Other than being miserable for two weeks, November was a pretty good month for me. How was it for you? Are you excited about the upcoming holidays in December?
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 September 2013
Overall, I’d have to say that September was a pretty good month for me. Although my stats are down from last month because there was no author drama, I’m very happy with my 5,138 views, which is the highest number of views I’ve had in a non-drama month since January. I’ve also welcomed 33 new followers this month and that makes me extremely happy; I pay more attention to follower statistics anyway.
So what were my top articles in September?
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
3. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
4. The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself
5. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
Every single one of these except #5 has been on the list at least once before. The fact that my article about speed reading is just now picking up steam is nice because I did put quite a bit of effort into writing it. It’s nice to know that I can pass on a skill of mine to other people who read it. The other articles, aside from the author drama one are popular simply because kids are back in school now or because it’s about a popular TV/book series.
So those were my five best articles. What were my five worst?
1. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
2. Kaiulani: The People’s Princess by Ellen Emerson White
4. Looking for Alaska by John Green
5. The Time Travelers by Linda Buckley-Archer
Nothing is really all that surprising on this list. They’re all newcomers to the list and are either books that aren’t exactly popular or popular books that are much older. People won’t show much interest in The Hunger Games until Catching Fire releases anyway, so I’m not going to lose any sleep over my review of Mockingjay getting so few views.
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 July 2013
Well, July was actually a pretty good month for me. I got some serious reviewing in, writing 7 reviews in one day and 5 in another (and spacing the rest out like I normally do). I also did some serious reading and have begun requesting more from NetGalley which I really shouldn’t considering my author backlog. Ah, the wonders of procrastination!
Overall monthly views are down from last July (3,937 compared to 4,350 last July), but that doesn’t really concern me at this point. It may be that WordPress changed the way they’re counting statistics or it could be that people weren’t visiting my site as much. It’s not a big deal considering that I began the month with 413 followers and ended with 462! Followers are more important than views to me, so getting almost 50 views in one month is quite an accomplishment. It seems that the more followers I already have, the more I attract.
But enough rambling. Let’s take a look at the 5 best articles of July 2013:
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. How to Write a Review Request
4. My Least Favourite Book Tropes
5. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
For once, there are four newcomers to the top 5 list, three of which were published just in July. My Game of Thrones article is frankly, no surprise. I published it at the beginning of the month and am still averaging 15 views per day on it. It’s particularly SEO friendly and clicky so it’s spread around through social media more than my rants usually do. Similarily, How to Write a Review Request and My Least Favourite Book Tropes were articles/rants that were easily shared and promoted discussion. And of course, The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome continues its streak at the top. As for The White Queen, well, The White Princess just released and there’s quite a bit of buzz surrounding the series at the moment.
So what articles were the worst 5 this month?
2. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
3. There Comes a Prophet by David Litwack
4. Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey
5. Look What Just Arrived! (#3)
Again, no real surprises here. They’re all either self published books, old books or old articles. It’s a shame that so many good books end up on my bottom 5 list in terms of hits, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still good books. It would just be nice for the authors to have a little more publicity, especially in the case of indies.
So that was how my July went: a blur of books and work (ah, tourist season). How was yours? Are you reading anything interesting?