Need some good news to cheer you up after all those gloomy articles about the economy, negative campaigning and dying book-review sections?
One-Minute Book Reviews recently had its 250,000th visitor … with never any pictures grammatically challenged cats.
There, now don’t you feel better?
[I’d love to know how to translate the number of visitors into hits, which should be much higher. Anybody know how to do this? Jan]
© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com
One-Minute Book Reviews 
The easy answer: you can’t. I read this blog every day, but I read it through my feed reader, so the only time you’ll ever get a “visitor” or “hit” showing I’ve been here will be on those days where I either comment, or come to the blog to get the physical address of a post so I can create a link to it somewhere, or come to the blog to find something I know you said some time ago. (For anyone who doesn’t understand feed readers, we have a post on our blog about how they work and why people use them.) I probably physically come to the website every couple of weeks. So for me, hit(read)/visitor ratio would be about ten to one, if not even higher. But not everyone uses feed readers, and some people who do still visit their favorite blogs all the time to comment, creating a one-to-one hit/visitor ratio.
Comment by laurakramarsky — April 23, 2008 @ 4:29 pm |
Thanks, Laura. I actually knew about feed readers but hadn’t thought about their role in this, so your comment was helpful to me. And thanks for visiting the site so often, too.
Jan
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — April 23, 2008 @ 4:51 pm |
One Minute Book Reviews is the only blog I visit daily, and usually the only one I ever comment on.
I just really appreciate your straightforward style, and the fact that the site is akin to a visit to a candy store for bibliophiles.
Comment by ggelliott — April 23, 2008 @ 9:56 pm |
Thanks, GG. I’m honored that you stop by and enjoy your comments. And I appreciate your noticing that I try to be straightforward.
Almost nothing frustrates me more than reading a review and coming away with no idea what a critic thought about the book, because the review just summarized the plot or factual content. Have you noticed how many critics just aren’t willing to be … critical?
Jan
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — April 23, 2008 @ 10:14 pm |
I only discovered your blog recently but I immediately added in onto my Bloglines list. I love that every morning, before I sit down to do ‘proper work’, I get to dip into your world to enjoy some brilliantly observed, honest, and ‘to the point’ book reviews!
Comment by The Social Librarian — April 24, 2008 @ 6:59 am |
It’s rare that I’m happy to be counted among thousands of others but here, it’s a good thing. I read your book blog like others read the morning paper. Meanwhile, my booklist grows. Onward!
Comment by oh — April 24, 2008 @ 7:50 am |
Jan,
I have also noticed everything you mentioned regarding critics and reviews, and would only add: their propensity for using 200 words when ten would have sufficed.
Here’s to brevity!
Comment by ggelliott — April 24, 2008 @ 8:20 am |
Social Librarian: What a pleasure to hear. Writing a blog can be a bit like putting notes in bottles and throwing them out to sea, and it’s always so reassuring to hear that people are reading.
Oh and GG: Thank you both so much. About that “using 200 words when ten would have sufficed”: That especially bothers me when the words fall into the category that some people call “reviewese” or “reviewerese” — a “must-read,” “a literary event” and more. I love it when visitors to this site jump in with their own bugbears in that category, because there are so many, I can hardly keep track of them …
Jan
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — April 24, 2008 @ 9:37 am |
Hopefully, my coming here 1000 times a day didn’t throw the numbers off.
Congrats!
Malcolm
Comment by knightofswords — April 24, 2008 @ 10:12 am |
And I thought all those visitors were coming because they wanted to get a heads up on the worst books of 2008 … Thanks for stopping by even when I’m not facing one of those awful decisions like: Which is worse, “The Secret” or “A New Earth”?
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — April 24, 2008 @ 12:19 pm |
Congratulations! I read you every day too– but you’re on my WordPress Blog Surfer, so I don’t necessarily click on the link to read your posts– it’s all right there on the surf page. I am conscious of the fact that it doesn’t add to someone’s hits if I read a post this way, so I often click, just to add to the count!
Comment by Moonbeam McQueen — April 26, 2008 @ 10:36 am |
I am learning so much from these comments! Odd as it may seem, I didn’t know how WordPress Blog Surfer worked. Thanks for helping me to see how much tech-savvier I need to get …
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — April 26, 2008 @ 5:24 pm |