It’s hard to believe the month is over. And I did it. I posted one post a day all through the month of May. Even though I had such a tough time blogging in the last two years, I never doubted I would make it. I somehow knew I would enjoy it and I really did. The first weeks went by very quickly, the third was a bit dragging but the fourth was gone before it even started. I didn’t follow a plan, I just picked something every day, read it or looked at it and wrote about it.
Before I’m going to look at some statistics, I’d like to thank everyone who followed me this month. All those who read my posts, liked them, and commented. Thank you very much. You all made this so much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. It almost felt like the early years of blogging. And gives me hope that I can celebrate my upcoming 10-year anniversary in style – posts and guest posts and maybe one or two themed weeks. We will see.
Some statistics:
I read 2 novels (which I didn’t review) and 18 novellas, short novels, longer stories, and nonfiction texts.
12 titles were written by women, 8 by men.
I read books from 11 different countries: UK, US, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Turkey, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, and Russia.
Week two was the week when I had the most visitors and also the most new subscribers.
The posts that had the most views were: The Daphne du Maurier Week post on The Birds, 100 Must-Read Life-Changing Books and The Intro post The Temptation of a Post a Day in May.
The day when I had the most views was the day when I published on Dickens.
The posts that received the most comments were The Intro Post, the Post on The Birds, and the post on Chandler’s Killer in the Rain.
This is quite interesting as it shows how many people look at posts without commenting or liking – The Life-Changing Books post for example.
New Followers – I did count for a while but then there were so many every day that I gave up. By week two, there were some 40 or 50 new followers.
Where do I go from here?
The question that I’ve been asking myself in the last couple of days—where do I go from here? I don’t want to go back to posting only once a month or every two months. Obviously, that wasn’t exactly my choice since I had pain issues. That was actually my biggest worry for this month – that the pain would return. And it did for a week or so, but luckily it wasn’t as unmanageable as before.
Before this month, I also had issues with reading. I picked one dud after the other that I really didn’t feel like reviewing. I was astonishingly lucky this month. There was one book I could have done without, Odd and the Frost Giants, but even that was not terrible at all. And those that were good like Love, Am Südhang, Once There Was A Family, Killer in the Rain, The Dog,The Testament of Mary, or The Calligraphers’ Night were just amazing. Several will be on my best of list at the end of the year.
This will sound weird, but it looks like I do best when I have a project that leaves me a lot of freedom. If I had chosen the books I was going to read and write about beforehand – this would have been an utter failure.
So, what now? It is entirely possible that I will do another month like this. Maybe in August, maybe in December. It might not even be about books. I might resuscitate my World Cinema Series and do A Movie a Day.
And I would like to begin a late Literature and War Readalong. Last year I had to skip it, the year before I had to stop before the end. So, this year, I’d like to just read two or three titles, but not decide in advance which ones I’ll be reading. I’ll let you know two months in advance, so you can join, if you feel like it.
For now, I hope I can stick to a three days per week posting schedule. One review type post, one coffee table book, and maybe something more like essays or musings.
Thanks again to everyone who read, commented, liked and shared. It meant and it means a lot. Without you, it wouldn’t have been so much fun.
