Three Years on the Blog Highway

I'm coming up on the third anniversary of starting this blog. At each year anniversary I've written about the past year: Two Years of Blogging and One Year in the Blogosphere.

It's been a great three years! Anyone who follows me here will have noticed a change in the frequency of my posts in the last year. That was due to several things:

• Total knee replacement in January  which took the expected recovery and therapy time.
• Books! A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die released at the end of May and I turned in 'Til Dirt Do Us Part at the end of June. Writing and promotion uses the bulk of my time, which is as it should be.
• Our new Wicked Cozy Authors group blog, where I blog every week or two, plus
  
  contribute to the Wicked Wednesday topic every week, plus comment on the other posts and push news of the blog out. I hope you'll stop by and check it out!

I hired Kathleen Valentine to freshen up the look and functionality of this entire web site this spring, which I'm happy with. 

In terms of interesting stats, I find it fascinating that the second and third highest numbers of views come from China and Ukraine. I have to believe this is not from the huge number of mystery readers in those countries, but who knows? Internet Explorer on Windows were the most used browser and operating system, and people got here usually by way of Google searches. No big surprise on those stats.

My post on Finding a Pen Name was viewed the most of all three years of essays. Wow! The one about Quaker fiction also got a lot of views, as did my post about Girl Scouts.

As for the year to come? I'll be right here writing and promoting, and will put up a post now and then. 'Til Dirt Do Us Part will be out next June, with the paperback version of A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die next May. I'm finishing up the first draft of the second Lauren Rousseau mystery, Bluffing is Murder, now, and hope to send that off to Barking Rain Press this fall. Farmed and Dangerous (for a June 2015 release) is already underway. And there might be another series in the works. Watch this spot for news!

What do you think, gentle reader? Are blogs alive and well in 2013? Are they replaced by Facebook? Where online do you prefer to have a conversation? I'll send a copy of A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die to one lucky commenter (US-only, please - if you're from elsewhere, I'll send you an e-copy of Speaking of Murder), so be sure to leave your email address if you think I don't already have it.

One Year in the Blogosphere

Well, dear Readers, we made it. This blog is just over one year old. While I haven't quite kept up with my once a week goal, I ended up with 59 posts. That was due to my almost daily book reviews while I was recuperating from back surgery in the spring.

Blogger makes it easy to look at stats, and they are fascinating:

I've had almost 7000 page views. That's not much compared to some group blogs, but for a start, well, it's a start. And viewers sat in nine countries beyond the United States (including India and Slovenia).

Google and Facebook were the primary referring sites, while Twitter was the largest referring URL followed by http://travelswithkaye.blogspot.com/ - thanks, Kaye! This makes sense: usually when I put up a new post, I mention it on Facebook and on Twitter.

The most common Search keywords that brought people here were:

• Edith Maxwell
• edithmaxwell.blogspot.com
• mystery story ideas

Almost as many people viewed the page on Firefox as on Internet Explorer, but more than three-quarters were on a Windows system as opposed to twelve percent on a Mac. There were even three views on an iPod.

The most-read blog topics fell into five (sort-of) categories:

• Publishing (Real Books in Walmart, E-books, E-readers)
• The craft of writing (One Page a Day, Flash fiction)
• Story ideas (Story Ideas, Inspiration)
• Factual stuff (What is Linguistics, anyway?)
• Book reviews (A Trick of the Light)

I plan to continue blogging on topics relating to Speaking of Murder (book One), Murder on the Beach (book Two), and, of course, writing and publishing. Thanks to everybody who has stopped by. I know how many blogs and feeds are out there, and I really appreciate it.

What would you like to read about in the next year? Send those requests in now!