One Year Ago...

One year ago, I was one year younger.

One year ago, the average word count for my posts was about 300.

One year ago, my writing was juvenile.

One year ago, I didn’t exactly know, where, to, place, commas.

One year ago, I placed emoticons at inappropriate places. :)  ;P >:(

(and parentheses, too)

One year ago, I didn’t realize that “The arrow affected the aardvark. The effect was eye-popping,”

or that “Sue accepted all party invitations, except ones from George.”

One year ago, this blog was all white and bland.

One year ago, I used the words, “thought-provoking” and “intriguing” way too much.

One year ago, I blogged about uninteresting topics, such as insecticides, and 

made impossible goals, like reading only classic books over the summer.

One year ago, I discovered the word novella and didn’t stop saying it for an entire week.

One year ago, I created the goal that I would inform the world of great books.

One year ago today, I created The Bookshelf: Book Reviews, Recommendations, and News

by Jacob Hopkins.

And I would say that it’s been a pretty good year.

Stats, Part II

Last August, I shared with you some of the various statistics of The Bookshelf and its viewers. Now it is May, one day before The Bookshelf’s first birthday, and I’m ready to share with you some new, more accurate stats about this, in my opinion, great book blog.

The Bookshelf has been receiving more pageviews, more comments, and more foreign visitors than ever before. Below, I have separated the various stats into different paragraphs:

Pageviews: They generally range from 30-65 per day, but they are very inconsistent. For example, on May 1st, I received 41 pageviews, then on May 2nd, 34 pageviews, and on May 3rd, only 16 pageviews. At first, I assumed days that I posted on would have a higher amount of pageviews than those that I didn’t. However, May 1st had the most pageviews out of any day in the first week of May, and I didn’t post anything that day. I didn’t post anything the day before, either. Oddly, I did post on both the 2nd and the 3rd. That’s some strange stuff. 

The Bookshelf on an iPhone

Search Engines and Keywords: About thirty viewers have found my blog through Google and another seven through Bing. I’m so happy to see that I’m “search-able”. That’s great (and in retrospect, a little creepy, too)! What I find strange is what search keywords are used to find my blog. Of course, there’s the obvious ones, like “the bookshelf jacob hopkins”, “the bookshelf jake hopkins”, and “the bookshelf jacob”. But then there are the odd ones, which people clearly weren’t intending to find a book review blog with. For example, “film reel tattoo” (I do have a picture of a film reel on the Books into Movies poll page), “happyface emond” (I wrote a review of this book), and “what is the book before the throne of fire” (which I blatantly answered here, “…from The Red Pyramid, the book before The Throne of Fire…”).

Web Browsers: Mozilla Firefox leads the competition with a little over 50% of the pageviews. Internet Explorer comes in second, with 36% of the pageviews. Apple’s Safari web browser is third, Google Chrome is fourth, and Java is trailing along at the end with fifth place.

Operating Systems: As expected, there’s the usuals, Microsoft Windows, Apple’s Macintosh, and the lesser known Linux. What I’m really excited about, is that I have 23 pageviews from iPods/iPhones and one pageview from both a Blackberry and an iPad. I think it’s so cool that someone is reading my blog on a portable device. They could be risking their lives, looking at their mobile devices while driving, for me and my book blog. Not that I recommend web browsing while driving….

Foreign Visitors: I saved the best for last! The majority of my blog viewers come from the U.S., but I also receive pageviews from several other countries. Shall I list them all? I shall: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. That means, including the U.S., I receive pageviews from twenty-five countries. Twenty-five! That’s twenty-two more than last August, when I published my first stats post. Excluding the U.S., Russia has the most amount of pageviews, followed by Canada in second and South Korea in third. Please, please, please keep visiting foreign visitors. I wish I could thank all of you individually. Hopefully, a big group thank you will suffice – please see a “Thank You!” message on the right side of the blog, under the blog archive.

I believe that I have covered all statistics that are made available to me. Now it’s time to prepare for tomorrow’s one year birthday. But before I leave, I must give a HUGE “thank you” to everyone everywhere who has visited, commented, or voted on The Bookshelf. I am honored to have had such a successful first year, but I would have been lost without you, the readers.

Thank you,

Jacob 

(images via and via and via)

It's Favorite Author Month!

Rick Riordan

For the month of May, it will be Favorite Author Month on The Bookshelf! After doing some research, I became very disappointed. There's Favorite Book Month, Banned Books Week, Children Book Month, and Literacy Month, but there is no Favorite Author Month. I believe a Favorite Author(s) Month should be created because without authors, where are the books? Authors deserve recognition for the hard work and thought process that they put into their books!

Neal Shusterman

I thought May would be a great month to honor the favorite authors of mine, because it is also my Blogiversary Month (blogiversary - cool word, huh?) All this month I will be writing reviews and recommendations of books written by my favorite authors. Some of my favorites include Neal Shusterman, Ally Condie, Suzanne Collins, Gary D. Schmidt, Rick Riordan, Markus Zusak, John Green, Jackson Pearce, and Maggie Stiefvater.You can see their pictures scattered around this post. I though the best way to draw attention to these marvelous writers would be to create reviews that will not only praise their books, but also praise them as authors and individuals, too.

Ally Condie

Wondering how you, the readers of The Bookshelf, can celebrate Favorite Authors Month, too? It's easy:  Read your favorite books, visit the websites/blogs of your favorite authors, tell friends about the best books you've ever read, buy a new book by one of your favorite authors (authors benefit financially and spiritually when they see their fans purchasing their books), visit the library and ask the librarian for books similar to those that you enjoy, post about some of your favorite books right here on The Bookshelf in the comment section! The possibilities are endless! Just have fun and enjoy the books that you are reading. And when you're thinking, "Wow! This book is amazing!", remember the author, and just think about what an incredible person this must be to have written such a stellar book!

Because that's what Favorite Author Month is all about: reading and discovering favorite books and being so happy that someone, an author, put a certain story down on paper for the whole world to read.

What's Happening this Month?

Attention, attention! All readers near and far get ready, because The Bookshelf, on May 16th, will be turning one-year-old! I am so proud of all the progress that The Bookshelf, and I, have made. Looking at previous posts from last year, I can see how much I've grown and developed compared to newer, more recent posts. I have discovered amazing books, enhanced my writing skills, and have developed an (even) greater respect for literature. But most importantly, I believe I am starting to complete my goal: to inform the world of great books.

I am receiving more and more page views, from twenty plus countries, I am reaching out to people on different ends of the globe, I am discovering what a huge world it truly is out there, and how the people of that world can meet together and share and discuss and seek on one simple book blog. The Bookshelf is slowly, but steadily, becoming one of these meeting places. I am proud, and I am in awestruck of all of the book lovers, young, old, new, shy, loud, and all of the different literature they like, fiction, non-, realistic, fantasy, mystery, romance, poetry. For it is not me or the web or even books that keep this blog alive. It is the readers, the viewers, the commenters, the praise"ers", and the criticizers that keep this blog alive and thriving.

Thank you.

There will be many posts special just to The Bookshelf and me this month. Look forward to reviews/recommendations of Gary D. Schmidt, a favorite author of mine, a review of The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan, another favorite author, a review of Unwind by Neal Shusterman, yet another (no surprise!) favorite author, and I'm sure a few more reviews of spectacular books. (Maybe I'll make this month favorite authors month. Hmmm...) Also on the horizon: part 2 of last year's Stats, a new poll featuring graphic novels (aka, comic books!), and, most endearing to me, a poem-ish post on May 16th about all that happened in one year.

There you have it! May will most certainly be a historical month for The Bookshelf! Once again, thank you to all my readers, and I hope that I will continue to post here for quite some time.

- Jacob Hopkins

(image courtesy of Donna Hopkins, PatchWork Photos)