Alright, friends. Let’s get to some numbery-maths for the year. I’m still at the point where I genuinely enjoy blogging (LET IT NEVER END) and I have a lot of fun breaking my year down in stats. If you’re interested the 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017 breakdowns are linked.

Just as a note: I’ve spent zero pennies on marketing of any kind since I started this blog in November 2016. Instead, I’ve focused on blog-hops and building relationships. That means super slow growth and also super low stress levels. (If slow is not the way you would want to grow your website, then these will not be very helpful posts for you.)

Image: Me, excited and doing the happy statistics dance

Visitors in 2021: We’ve broken the 4K mark with 4,012 visitors this year! 2020 had 3,090 visitors, for comparison purposes. I feel like this deserves celebration cupcakes? But then again I feel like everything calls for a celebratory cupcake.

Top 5 Posts from 2021:

To my complete lack of surprise, the number one post this year was Book Tropes: The Grovel in the Novel. EVERYONE loves a good groveling scene, and this includes me. Authors, take note.

2. Book Tropes: I Can’t Argue With You When You’re Sick!

3. Still holding strong in the third spot, one of my earliest ever posts: 15 Gorgeous Literary Tattoos.

4. Book Tropes: I Hate Everyone. Who Isn’t You.

and number 5. Stranger Things Season 1-Episode 7 Review. Because apparently complete strangers on the internet really enjoy watching me lose my everloving sh*t over this show. I don’t blame them a bit.

Favourite post I wrote in 2020:

Because I like the conversations which get started, my favorite post from this year was all about when I drop the DNF hammer. I am one of those readers who will stop reading, because life is short and my to-be-read list is VERY, VERY long and I just don’t have the time to waste.

Post I wish had gotten a little more love:

So You Need a Book Cover: 16 Romance Cover Designers. It’s genuinely hard to find a comprehensive list of romance specific designers and I’m proud of the work I did on this one.

Top three searches that led users right to me in 2021:

  1. semalt.com. (Whoever you are, cheers for sending internet searchers my way.)
  2. beauty and the beast trope books 2019 (Yep, this trope is evergreen. Although why limit yourself to just 2019? More fabulous takes on this trope come out every year!)
  3. hero hurts heroine and grovels (Another consistently popular theme. A proper emotional justice plot is just so SATISFYING.)

shower organizer pole super white sadly disappeared this year. For the first two years of blogging this was the top term which led people right to me. RIP shower organizer. But I my clicks report tells me I sent roughly 1,258 people to Goodreads looking up the various books I recommended in my trope posts and let me tell you that is a wonderful feeling. Godspeed, fellow bookworms.

Top five countries my readers came from this year:

  1. United States
  2. India
  3. United Kingdom
  4. Canada
  5. China (Nín hǎo!)

Reasons my readers continue to be the Actual Best™:

Still here for highbrow, very literary posts (see: Writing the Good Bad Boy packed full of curse words and gifs)

You still comment on the actual article content at the bottom of the post in question, a rare and precious treasure in the explosive Fireswamp which is internet comment sections. I adore you all for this and hope I bring something to your comment sections as well.