Tagged: the best and worst of
The Best and Worst of June 2013
Yes, my post is late today! Well, that’s because it’s Canada Day and I’m sick (again) with a sore throat and runny nose. Nothing unusual there so don’t panic; I’m just feeling miserable and am a little crankier than usual.
If you look at the stats for this time last year, they went down as well as most of my traffic seems to come from students looking for help on school assignments. That’s why in June I only received 3,803 views and 2, 014 unique visitors. Still respectable, but nothing really to brag about.
So on that note, let’s look at what my top posts in June 2013 were:
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. Why no Writer Wants to Tackle Chronic Pain
4. End of Days by Eric Walters
5. An Apology to Self-Published Writers
None of these is really that surprising. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome has made this list every month since May 2012 and the rest are either novel study books or are particularly clicky articles that people read, shared and commented on. Obviously that drove the views through the roof for these particular articles.
So then what were the worst articles/book reviews in June?
3. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
4. The 3 Best Books to Read in the Bathroom
5. Rot & Ruin by Jonathon Maberry
None of these is all that surprising seeing as some are not particularly popular self-published books or books from older series that have already been finished. The only real puzzler here is Rot & Ruin by Jonathon Maberry because while it’s not the most popular book ever written, it does have a decent fan base. Oh well; that’s just how it goes sometimes.
The Best and Worst of May 2013
Well, I’ve come around full circle. Last year in May I started my Best and Worst of… series and never thought I’d still be doing it a year later. But it turns out I like analyzing my stats and hearing your thoughts on them as well. Therefore, I’ll now be adding years to the series.
Anyway, May was a record-breaking month, surpassing February, March and April in terms of page views in one month. In the month of May I received 4,627 page views, with 2,508 of those being unique views. That’s pretty good and I’m hoping it will continue to be a trend. So what were some of the best posts for this month? Let’s take a look:
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. End of Days by Eric Walters
3. An Apology to Self-Published Writers
4. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Amazingly, there’s two articles up here that were just published this month, rather than the same old articles I’ve had up for a year. I’m proud to say that my apology to self-published writers reached so many people and got such a great response. I thought long and hard on publishing that article, but decided that doing the right thing was more important than my embarrassment at admitting I was wrong. The reading speed article did surprisingly well, likely because it really engaged a lot of people. It was fascinating to see how fast other people, both regular readers and book bloggers read.
Now for the worst articles of May:
4. Run Like Jäger by Karen Bass
5. Victoria: May Blossom of Britannia by Anna Kirwan
When you think about it, none of these are really surprising. Some are old books that were never popular to begin with, some are the first books in trilogies that are or almost are finished and one is a self-published book. The latter, The Show by John Heldt, is a great novel, but it just doesn’t seem to be getting much traffic lately.
Well, that was pretty much how my May went. How was yours? Are you reading anything good at the moment?
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 February
Whoa, is it March already? February is a pretty short month, but things went by very quickly for me. Maybe it had something to do with my vacation.
Anyway, me being on vacation also means that site stats are down. Although I scheduled posts to fill up all of the days I would be on holiday, I had to resort to reviewing some unpopular, obscure books. As you’ve probably guessed, not many people are interested in these books, therefore my stats are down drastically. If I had reviewed popular new YA books, ranted or done reviews on old classics like 1984, I would have had far more than 3,416 views and 1,843 unique views.
I digress. Let’s look at the top 5 best articles/reviews of February, shall we?
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. How to Alienate Book Reviewers
3. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome has been on the 5 Best list since I started doing this series in May 2012. It’s back at the top, which is not all that surprising. What is surprising, however, is the two newbies to the 5 Best list: How to Alienate Book Reviewers and What I Hate About YA. These are the kinds of clicky articles I was talking about a while back, meaning that not only are the titles something people would click on, but they’re the kinds of articles that people like to comment on. As for Matilda and The Outsiders, it’s not that surprising; they’re incredibly popular books. But now let’s take a look at the 5 worst articles of February.
1. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
2. The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
3. Patience, Princess Catherine by Carolyn Meyer
4. My Status Update Journey by Marcus Matherne
5. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
When you think about it, none of the 5 worst posts are all that surprising. I can vouch that they’re all excellent books that I thoroughly enjoyed, but for some reason no one is searching for them online. Which is a shame, really, because it’s nice to expand your horizons and discover new books.
So that was how my February went. How was yours?
The Best and Worst of 2012
It’s been one heck of a year for me, that’s for sure. Not only did I read and review 260 books, I’ve made so many new friends and discovered so many great new authors I never would have found otherwise. When I first started my blog, my personal life was chaotic but the daily posting regime has helped me with time management and increased my sense of responsibility. It’s also made me realize that I absolutely love blogging and will likely be here this time next year. After all, I have to finish my own reading challenge, don’t I?
Since this is a recap of the entire year, I’m not only going to do my best and worst posts in terms of traffic, but also the most commented, most liked and the ones I think are my best work. Well, here we go:
The 5 Best Posts (Traffic)
1. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton (2, 615 hits)
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome (2, 467 hits)
3. Matilda by Roald Dahl (2, 025 hits)
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry (1, 701 hits)
5. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (1, 414 hits)
Now, for me this is not all that surprising. I’ve consistently had search engine traffic for each post and most posts are older posts, which gave an advantage over the other posts that are just now gaining speed.