January 6, 2015
10 Hits and Misses for 2014
Since I started this blog five-and-a-half years ago, I’ve had almost 900,000 visitors, 3300 on my busiest day, visiting the 1,097 articles I’ve written on every facet of writing. I have several columns:
- writer’s tips (sign up by clicking here)
- book reviews (Fridays)
- tech tips for writers (occasional)
In between, I write what’s on my mind. It may be about the craft of writing, trends in the industry, or how my writing business is doing. I like to keep articles short, so you can finish them with your coffee. You’ll rarely find one over 1000 words. Do you like short articles, or long ones? Take my poll, and then read on:
[polldaddy poll=8551198]
If I didn’t look at the statistics on my blog, I would guess that the most read posts were about the art of writing–how to do it and how to market it. I would guess that the series I wrote on Genre Writing Tips was up at the top of the list because it was wildly popular. Interestingly enough, while these did get lots of comments (see my upcoming post on my most-commented articles), they didn’t get the most visits. In fact, the most popular articles this year are the same categories as last year–a series I call Descriptors–how to describe a variety of stuff you include in your stories.
When you look at these articles, many weren’t written in 2014–just generated a lot of interest among aspiring authors last year.
Here they are–my top 10 and bottom 10 of 2014:
Top Ten Hits
- 51 Great Similes to Spark Imagination–check the comments, too. Readers have added their favorites.
- 178 Ways to Describe Women’s Clothing–describing the varieties in women’s clothing is challenging. Based on the comments, readers like it for the same reasons I wrote it–it explains what-the-heck we-all women wear
- 35 Weird Traits Your Characters May Have–I love this one for its uniqueness. These are some great traits to add to your characters to make them stand out
- How to Describe Nature–read this just for the poetic beauty some great fellow writers use to describe the power of nature.
- How To Describe Noses, Mouths, Legs, and more
- How to Describe a Person’s Clothing
- How to Describe Your Character’s Home II
- Word Count by Genre--a breakdown of what each genre expects in word count. Guidelines only, of course
- How to Describe Dogs–you have to visit this post. I love dogs and an awful lot of great writers have clever words to share about man’s best friend
- One-Word Characteristics to Spice Up Your Writing
Here are the ten that received the least amount of activity, but were no-less carefully-written:
Top Ten Misses
- What Happens When you Lose Your Best Friend`
- Characterize Your International Novel
- Why I Don’t Get Writers Block
- Book Review: Spycraft–Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs
- I Heart Neologisms
- Yes You Can Publish Direct to IPad
- Book Review: Kind of Cruel
- Book Review: Talking Back to Facebook
- What I learned from finishing my novel
- Tech Tip for Writers #63: Don’t Like Double Space Between Paragraphs?
What were your most popular posts on your writer blog? Give me some topic hints for this year!
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman
