6 Years of Blogging

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A long time ago in a country far, far away, I started this blog. Well, six years ago around Halloween to be precise. My first “review” was of Richard Matheson’s haunted house story Hell House (1971). I read it as a “Halloween Read.” The book was okay; my review not so much. 😅 So, to celebrate six years of blogging I thought I would write about my most-viewed posts. Andreas over at the excellent book and story review site Reiszwolf inspired this post when he wrote about achieving 100K views. Now, I’m nowhere near that number of views but when you stop and think about it, any number of views is a wonderful achievement.

A few years back, I was talking to a friend about my WordPress site. He asked me how many daily views I was getting on average. When I told him “only five or six,” he said I should drop the “only.” The fact that people I’d never met and who didn’t know me were finding and reading (maybe) my reviews was something I should be proud of. Sometimes it takes someone else to open your eyes, as it were, to make you see something from a different perspective. We should all be proud of every single view we get on our sites. I am, so thank you!

Okay, back to the topic. Here are my Top 10 most-viewed posts:

1. Impostor (1953) a short story by Philip K. Dick

2. Pyramids (1989) a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett

3. The Fog Horn (1951) a short story by Ray Bradbury

4. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011) a non-fiction behemoth edited by Pamela Jackson & Jonathan Lethem

5. The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) a novella by Victor LaValle

6. Tracking Song (1975) a short story by Gene Wolfe

7. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) a novel by Philip K. Dick

8. The Best Introduction to the Mountains (2001) an essay about J.R.R Tolkien by Gene Wolfe

9. Polaris (1918) a short story by H.P. Lovecraft

10. Mockingbird (1980) a novel by Walter Tevis

Some Number Crunching

I wrote the Impostor review in January 2018, so almost four years ago. It currently has 726 views. The most recent post is Mockingbird which I reviewed in January 2021. So far, it has 240 views. So I am still striving for the magic 1K views for a single post. My “Homepage” has almost reached 7K hits, so that’s pretty cool. The oldest posts on the list are Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Pyramids which I posted back in February 2016.

Some Thoughts

I am surprised to see that there are four short stories and only three novels in the list. Also the post about Gene Wolfe’s essay and the HUGE Exegesis of PKD. It’s a very mixed bunch of posts, which is nice to see. 😀 Philip K. Dick is my most popular author with three posts in the top 10. Gene Wolfe is next with two posts.

OK, that’s enough baring of the soul of Wakizashi’s Teahouse. Thanks so much for visiting and reading!

-Wakizashi, *still here, still typing, still wondering*

47 thoughts on “6 Years of Blogging”

  3. Happy Blogiversary! That’s some interesting musings you have there!
    My top viewed post with around 1500 views is „The Ones Who Stay and Fight“, an Omelia story by Jemisin. I have to figure out how I get a total sum for a single post, though.
    Another thing I love to think about are the statistics about countries. Yes, there are the prominent United States, and this year has seen 787 views from Japan (many from you 😍). But there are also hits from countries like Brunei or St. Lucia which is very cool 😎!

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    • Thank you Andreas! And thanks for inspiring this post. Yes, it’s fascinating which countries people view our reviews from. I should have written about it in the post😅. America and the UK bring my highest number of views. But I love seeing countries like Bolivia, Iraq, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and more on the list, too.

      Liked by 1 person

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    • Thank you! Yeah, I was surprised by the mix of formats in the top 10: short stories, novellas, novels, and non-fiction.

      I’ve been thinking about how long this site will last. I just commented to Borgmans about backing up our reviews. Do you post on other sites? I can’t remember. If WordPress dies or goes fully commercial, what will you do with all your reviews? I’m thinking about it now.

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  8. Cool! I started my blog also somewhere around 2015. My top 10 will look very differently because I used to be a movie/book site and I wrote a lot of full reviews for movies, but movies bring in much more views than books so my top 10 is full of movie reviews.

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      • Its close on ten years on WordPress, and five before that over on the sadly defunct FilmJournal site, so yeah, I’ve been doing this far too long and read by far too few readers, but I enjoy the creative exercise: after awhile, it also becomes a hard habit to break… you’ll find out after another six years!

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        • That is a long-time commitment and very impressive. That’s so true about it being a creative exercise. Great way to look at it! I love the interaction in the comments, as well as reading the comments on friends’ sites.

          As you are a seasoned blogger, have you noticed an increase or decrease in views/traffic over the last few years? Like many bloggers, I received a boost during the start of the “pandemic”, but views have been dropping since summer this year.

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          • Yeah I think views have been dropping. I think that’s partly because there seems to be a trend towards video streams, blogging on YouTube… sadly I think reading is too much hard work for some, much easier to chill in front of the telly and watch someone talking about a film or tv show.

            Although bucking that trend, my views last year were my highest ever for a calendar year, and today my blog actually equalled last years total so with just over a month to go I’m having my best year ever. Which is obviously gratifying, albeit the numbers are probably quite small compared to most blogs. I usually get one or two comments for every post so that possibly reflects my levels of traffic…

            Liked by 1 person

          • That’s great that your viewing numbers are going up, especially after your best year being last year. Last year was my best year as well.

            I started a YouTube channel in summer. I focus on reviewing comics because of their visual nature. I’ve done a couple of book reviews but they don’t get as much traffic as the comic reviews. I’m still small-fry compared to most channels, but it’s been fun learning how to put together a video.

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  11. And here’s another view for you! I love your attitude towards all this. Very positive and productive, and an inspiration. It is fascinating sometimes to look at those stats, especially over a long period of time. I started mine in June of 2014 and the first 4 years were almost flatlined. 🙂 Like you I’m surprised at some of the most popular posts. There are a couple there I’d never have thought would make the list.

    I’m curious, how do you feel overall about Philip K Dick and Gene Wolfe? Just curious how closely your interests match those of us viewers. I’ve read far less of either author than I’d like, but have very much enjoyed what I have read so far. I especially enjoyed Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun.

    I just went back and read your review of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and really enjoyed that. I read the book for the first time this year and enjoyed comparing it to the movie. Most times I very much prefer books over movies with some very rare occasions when I very much prefer the movie. In this case I’m torn. I really enjoyed both and each have major strengths over the other. I loved how the book provided more depth than the movie, which is typical for books. But I also preferred the conciseness of the movie in some regards, such as less time spent talking about live vs android pets.

    Congratulations on sticking with this for 6 years and I hope to still be reading your words long into the future. Take care, Wakizashi!

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    • Thank you very much for your kind words, Todd. I know views and likes aren’t everything but it’s nice to think a few people out there might get something from our blogs. Saying that, I do wonder if I would be carrying on if I was still receiving the same traffic I got for the first three years; it wasn’t much!

      I do really enjoy both Philip K. Dick and Gene Wolfe. The Book of the New Sun is a series I need to return to. I’ve read more by PKD. Back in 2016 when this blog was still finding its feet, I joined a PKD Reading Challenge with a couple of blogging friends. We read and reviewed one PKD book each month for a year. At the same time, we read our way through the mammoth tome that is “The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick” trying to cover 75 pages each month. The PKD books were fun but his Exegesis was tough to get through.

      I love both book and film adaptation of “Do Androids Dream…” As you say, they both have merits. Blade Runner is one of my top 3 all-time favourite movies. I’d watched the film many times before I actually read the book. All this talk of PKD has got me wanting to read something by him. I just uploaded a video review of The Penultimate Truth (1964) on my YouTube channel. Have you read it? I reviewed it on this blog back in July 2020. It was a bit disappointing, so I think it’s time to find a great story by him that I haven’t read yet.

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      • I haven’t read The Penultimate Truth. I’m actually currently reading The Man in the High Castle, and though I’m enjoying it, it’s not hitting me as strongly as Do Androids Dream did. I think I recall hearing good things about The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and I’ve been curious to read A Scanner Darkly because of the old Scanner movie.

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        • Three Stigmata felt like there was too much going on in it to me, but it is a very popular book among fans. Perhaps I’ll give it another shot sometime. I really liked Scanner, although it is pretty dark. It’s based on some of PKD’s drug experiences and features characters and scenes that reflect those times for him.

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