I’m pausing content today to mark Blogiversary #7, provide a brief blog update, and offer my sincerest thanks for all the follows, likes, shares, and comments. Please enjoy a virtual cupcake!
(If you’re not a blogger, you might want to skip this nerdy post.)

Celebrating 7 Years of Book Blogging!

Find all the books I’ve reviewed here on this page.

Reflections on 7 Years:

Virtual Friendships

If you had told me that one of the greatest joys of blogging is the supportive and friendly blogging community, I don’t know if I would have believed you. I was intimidated to push “publish” on those first few posts. I was terrified to comment on a stranger’s blog and to interact with strangers on my own site. It didn’t take long for me to set aside those apprehensions and fully embrace the connections! If I interact with you regularly, you know who you are Dear Friends! Some of the lovely bloggers I interact with most frequently participated in my recent summer collaboration: “Summer’s One Must Read Book.”

My Tip For New Bloggers: Connect, Comment, and Collaborate!

Stats

The most important aspect of blogging is not the numbers. Blogging, reading, and reviewing is NOT a competition. However, I’m a stats nerd and I enjoy tracking my stats as a way to measure progress. The actual number doesn’t matter to me as much as the consistent upward trend. At seven years, I feel highly satisfied with my overall stats. I have experienced steady growth as a result of diligent effort and persistence. I must admit that this year’s views have been a bit sluggish in that I’m holding steady with last year but not seeing the yearly increase to which I’ve grown accustomed. I’m wondering if other bloggers are experiencing sluggish stats?

I surpassed 1,000 posts this year! This post is #1,164.

Recently, I was excited to exceed the high bar of 2,000 followers (2,117) which is exhilarating in light of that first 100 follower milestone! I realize that for some bloggers this is a low number and for other bloggers this might seem like an unreachable number. Each blogger is on a unique, personal journey and every milestone is celebrated by the community.

I passed another significant milestone number this year as my current total number of views/hits exceeded one million! (1, 081, 634 as of this moment) Wow! Thanks everyone!

Tip For New Bloggers: Persistence in all areas–quality content, scheduling of posts, interactions with the blogging community, and (social media) promotion–is KEY.

One other important and related stat I track is the origin source of my views. Over seven years, the highest source remains search engines (which indicates that my SEO work is paying off) followed (in order) by WordPress Reader, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Instagram drives very little traffic to my blog these days because I’d rather be reading than making reels.

Domain Authority: A stat I track out of curiosity from time to time is my Domain Authority (DA) rank. In the simplest terms, it’s how your site ranks in search engine queries. You can check your DA free: Domain Authority Checker. (and check anyone else’s as well). One way to raise your DA rank is to optimize every post for SEO. DA is the most frustrating stat because it fluctuates for no apparent reason. I usually check it once a month. The last time I checked, I finally broke 30 (my high is 36 but I recently noticed I experienced a drop). I’ve been bouncing around the 20s for most of my blogging career. The only reason to care about this number is that certain sites or brands you might want to work with might require a certain DA rank. You can read more about DA here. Most hobby bloggers can safely ignore DA stats. I’m just always curious.

NetGalley: Another stat I’m proud of and worked hard for is my NetGalley ratio. (NG is one way reviewers receive advanced reading copies) If you are a book reviewer and use NG, you know! I’ve maintained an above 80% ratio (currently at 97%) for three years now! I also earned my 200 reviews badge. I realize that 200 seems low compared with other bloggers and 7 years of blogging but I’m picky about my ARCs….I dread having to DNF them or award less than 3 Stars or request so many that my ratio suffers.

Unrelated to Reading Stat: In case you wonder if I do anything else besides read, I need to tell someone that I’m at level 4,706 in Candy Crush! LOL It’s my brain break! Anyone else still playing CC? I work the booster reward system and have never spent a dime. I limit myself to about 10 minutes a day (unless I happen to fall into a winning streak or earn 30 min of free boosters!)

Blogging: The School of Hard Knocks

In 7 years, I’ve learned a few things (sometimes the hard way). Honestly, I jumped into the deep end of blogging without much thought or planning. Maybe I’ve shared the story….on the last bittersweet drive home from my teaching career (retired) I was bereft and knew I had to throw myself into something to fill the hours I had devoted to my students. The thought of starting my own book review blog had been tickling my brain for a few months, but that afternoon I made the commitment and signed up with WordPress that night. This is my first post. I was right; it was all consuming and helped me transition from a demanding career to a fulfilling avocation. All my knowledge has been learned through experience and the character traits of fearless determination and persistence.

The first year is the hardest. Here’s a SHOUT OUT to my first visitors and followers! Sending cheers and encouraging vibes to all bloggers who are now in their first years!

The transition from Classic Editor to Block Editor was a work in progress: It’s been a journey! See my three Block Editor updates here, here, and here. I’m delighted to announce that I currently use Block Editor for all new posts and update one older post per week. The most difficult part involved making new templates.

The only elements that remain difficult at times (or more difficult than it needs to be) include:

Color
(why can’t the color I select appear on the toolbar so I can quickly click it again instead of having to copy and paste the color code in each and every time? Also, assigning color to text is troublesome at times….I must be doing something wrong.)

No toolbar menu for special characters like accent marks
(not only is it not on the toolbar — which classic had — but I can’t find a special characters feature anywhere in Block so I have to find my cheat sheet of keyboard commands or copy and paste the word in it’s correct form from another site)

A sincere shout-out to the bloggers who continually encouraged my transition from Classic to Block!

New: Free Book Club Kits!

This year, I felt the urge to push myself and offer a new feature…..FREE Book Club Kits were born! Thanks to Jo @ Jo Linsdell for the inspiration! Currently, I have created THREE: James Book Club Kit; Go As a River Book Club Kit; and West With Giraffes Book Club Kit. I’ve enjoyed some positive feedback which encourages me to create more! Does this feature sound interesting to you? Have you used one of my book club kits?

A Personal Glitch

I am slower at rolling out Book Club Kits than I anticipated because in October I suffered a severe retina detachment (macula off) which required immediate surgery and many office visits. It was discouraging and put a damper on my usual blogging/reading enthusiasm. This week I had cataract surgery which is the last step in regaining the sight in my right eye. I’m happy to report that my vision in the affected eye is significantly better. The cataract surgery resolved most of the lingering blurriness. My sight in that eye is not perfect, but I had wonderful doctors and I’m grateful for the vision that has been restored. PLEASE don’t neglect your annual vision screenings! I had no idea your eye could just fall apart!

Hardest and Easiest

Transitioning to the Block Editor falls into the “annoying” category in my mind. The difficult part was my resistance to it. Over seven years the most difficult part of blogging (for me) is the relentless social media promotion. Creating content (reviews and bookish posts) is the easy part, but then I face an hour or two of promotion on all the platforms. The interaction from that effort is lovely but the routine of it is uninspiring and tedious.

Tip for New Bloggers: Yes, you MUST promote on social media! (my stats reveal the effort)

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Thank You! THANK YOU!

Each visit, follow, comment, and share is so appreciated. I could not do this without you! Grab a virtual cupcake as you leave today!

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QOTD:

If you blog on WordPress, are you using Classic or Block?
If you blog, how many years do you have under your belt?
If you are a new blogger or are considering a blog, do you have a blogging question for me?

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Let’s Get Social!

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