Top 10 Posts For 2013

In many ways 2013 was a really excellent year for the blog. I started several new things and they all met with some great support from you, the readers. When I started the blog back in March 2011 I had no idea that it would grow to be this big or this popular. It truly is a humbling experience.

I love numbers, I am fond of them, especially when they tick upwards day by day, and so, sort of to acknowledge that particular fascination and also to share with all of you what you thought was the best reading on the blog in 2013, here are the top 10 posts of the year, in descending order.

Quite amazing really!

1. June Reading List Poll with 1,910 views
2. NANP: A Name To Conjure with 1,680 views
3. 51 Most Anticipated Releases For 2013 with 1,381 views
4. Most Anticipated Books of 2014 with 1,110 views
5. When Choice Is The Problem: On OSC and Ender’s Game with 971 views
6. The Reading List Poll with 965 views
7. NANP: The Difficulty of Names with 940 views
8. Publishing and Marketing 03: Women in SFF Part 1 with 932 views
9. Publishing and Marketing 04: Women in SFF Part 2 with 910 views
10. Reviewer’s Etiquette: Making An Apology with 667 views

More than anything else, what makes me really happy is that people have responded so well to my Names: A New Perspective series of guest posts by established and debut authors where they all talk about their naming conventions and the thoughts and what not they put into the whole thing. It is all motivation to keep doing these, bringing you an ever wider selection of authors and their unique perspectives to the task.

And the same goes for my Publishing & Marketing posts as well, particularly the two here that made the top 10 list. I intended the posts to be an acknowledgement of the women who have written SFF for several decades now and also acknowledge some of the best examples of female characters in fiction, irrespective of medium. These are truly the two posts which garnered far more support than I expected. The enthusiastic response also served as a validation, I hope, for people who support female authors in the industry. There are a long, long ways to go yet, but I like that posts like mine resonate with readers to such a level.

In general, it is because of all you readers that I am motivated to keep up with things. A few months ago I started doing comics reviews almost daily and that feature too has seen a huge amount of response. Which is great to see. I try and balance the comics side of the blog with the novels side, but its not easy. Still, I keep going because I know that its all the kind of content that people want to see. I love doing all these different things and if there is an actual interest, then all the better!

Finally, I just want to say that proper promotion, whether intended or unintended, can play a huge role in such things. Unless I’m mistaken, almost all these posts have been featured on Reddit, thanks to some great people who’ve shared the links there. And Reddit certainly has been a huge referrer to my blog for 2013. So thanks to everyone from there who took the time to read the various posts.

Hopefully some of you have become regular readers! Once again, thanks to all of you for making the blog so successful in 2013!