Writing a blog is hugely rewarding. I love writing and I love reading and as I learn more about blogging, I’m enjoying teaching people about how to blog. I thought it might be interesting to share the most successful posts on my blog throughout July with you. This isn’t a gloat, it’s hopefully just some inspiration for others to better understand what people want to see. Therefore, below I’ve listed the five most successful posts from this month.
Please note that this article contains affiliate links. This means if you choose to purchase a product via the links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you to support the blog. These affiliate links do not affect my final opinion of the products.
5. Book review: The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle
I honestly wasn’t expecting this review to receive quite the viewership that it did. However, this was the fifth most popular article on my blog this month.
I posted onto my Instagram story which review people would like to see first, this or Metro 2033 and people chose The Atlantis Gene. I think this may have created some hype around the review itself as I wasn’t aware the book had that huge of a following. Metro 2033 is a bit of a classic and also has been made into a fairly successful game so I thought that might win.
I summarised The Atlantis Gene by saying: “The Atlantis Gene set its bar high with its blurb, it mostly managed to accomplish the highs that it sets out and I hear the sequels and other books by A.G. Riddle do a far better job than this, so I look forward to reading those. If you enjoy a mysterious book that ventures into science and history, you’ll definitely enjoy Atlantis Gene. However, I must add, if you’re looking for either a character-driven book or a poetic masterpiece, you won’t find either of those here.”
Read my review of The Atlantis Gene here.
4. Book review: The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
I’m not as surprised by the popularity of this review. The Family Upstairs has received both critical acclaim and a lot of hype within the book community. It’s got a very intriguing premise about a woman who inherits a home only to find out its very dark history. We then proceed to read about the dark history with some twists and turns along the way. It’s a great read and one I gave four out of five stars.
I summarised The Family Upstairs by saying: “I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves a dark tale, those who love amystery and those who love thrillers. Lisa Jewell clearly had a concept in her head when she was writing this and has executed it very well. This is one of those novels that takes quite some intelligence to fulfill the potential of and Jewell clearly has plenty. A big success.”
3. Book review: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
This book has been on my TBR for quite a short amount of time. I was recommended it by a work colleague and so added it and found it on offer in a book shop so picked it up. After putting up a poll on my Instagram asking which book I should read next, A Thousand Splendid Suns ending up winning by quite a distance. I ended up loving the book and finding it quite the emotive and hard-hitting read. It quite quickly went into my list of some of the best books I’ve ever read (an article I hope to write someday).
The way I summarised A Thousand Splendid Suns “A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini blew me away. It had come highly recommended by quite a few and it did not let me down. This is a book that will tug at your emotions and immerse you in such a dark and horrible life that you won’t be able to stop yourself feeling sympathy for the women, poor and homeless of Afghanistan during these times and even likely now.”
Read my full review of A Thousand Splendid Suns.
2. The 8 Books I Finished in June
The 8 Books I Finished in June was a bit of a compulsive post. I had a bit of spare time on the 1 July and decided to start writing the post in the hope to get more people to read the reviews. It’s a simple technique and one I’m hoping to replicate each month. Social media algorithms and busy email inboxes mean not all your posts get into people’s vision. However, if you repost about them then there’s a better chance they’ll get picked up again.
Eight is a good amount of books to read in one month – averaging one every 4 days roughly. My goal is to read 50 books a year, it’s a nice round number and is a very respectable number. At eight books a month, I’d get 96 books a year. Though, I did read a lot of shorter books such as The Man in The High Castle, Fahrenheit 451 and Lord of the Flies. The other five books I read were: Hamnet, The Thursday Murder Club, Jade War, Old Man’s War and American Dirt.
1. Comparison: Goodreads vs StoryGraph
I’ve used StoryGraph for quite a while now and have used Goodreads for an even longer time. However, I’ve watched StoryGraph grow a lot over the past year and so wanted to highlight some of the great features it has.
In my article, I do a direct comparison between the two across different categories and eventually decide a winner. A little spoiler: StoryGraph has a lot more going for it than being a direct clone of Goodreads!
The reason this article has become so popular (it has more views this month than my home page!) was due to a tweet I posted on my own personal account (my blog Twitter was banned for a few days) that ended up getting a lot of attention after being retweeted by The Storygraph Twitter account. It was also commented on by The Storygraph’s Instagram account to mine and shared to their story. So thanks to them!
So to summarise…
Anyway, I’m hoping this becomes a regular thing. I’ll be posting these and the books I’ve read from the previous month each month. Keeping things regular should allow you all to get an idea of what to expect and when. So expect my list of books I’ve read in July tomorrow.
To summarise my tips for getting your pages viewed this month is to tag in any large companies you’re writing about, post about it everywhere you can and make sure you try and engage people with your content. Until next month!
You can pick up your copy of all of the books mentioned in this article here:
