2018 Blogging & Reading Stats

December 30, 2018 by Jeann @ Happy Indulgence | Features

I can’t believe there’s only a few more days left until 2018! It’s always interesting to look back at what has been achieved over the past year (especially when comparing it to the next year).

I don’t often look at my blogging stats, so I got a bit carried away compiling these statistics for the year on my reading and blogging. My 2018 wrap up will be coming soon, where I talk about my goals for the year. Hope you enjoy these stats.

Blogging Stats

After blogging for such a long time, I’ve learnt not to place a goal on gaining new subscribers because I know it will grow organically over time. I’ve done this because you can’t literally control the amount of subscribers you’re going to get – but instead, to focus on the number of posts, the quality of posts and the type of content that you produce.

Number of Followers

My current follower count for 2018 sits at over 18,065 followers across all platforms which is incredible! I can’t thank everyone enough for the support and hopefully these channels will continue to grow throughout 2019.

Monthly Pageviews

This year, our average monthly page view sits at around 4,300 a month which I’m pretty happy with. It’s since dropped in October though, so I’m hoping to get more quality content out next year.

Since dropping to two posts a week, our page views have dropped by 30% since the previous year, but that’s a change that I’m willing to accept (especially with my focus going to other things like Instagram, Youtube etc.).

Top 5 Most Popular Blog Posts

1. 5 Reasons Why I Didn’t Enjoy A Court of Mist and Fury

This post was published in 2016 and still remains my most popular blog post every year. I’ve been trolled for this post before on social media and also received a lot of hate comments, so I actually had to block any new comments on it. But hey, at least it’s getting me lots of views right?

2. The Importance of the Book Blogging Community

I wrote this post after the incident of a debut author threatening me after leaving the first negative review for her book. I received so much support after posting this which I was really thankful, because this was probably the most stressful time I’ve ever had while blogging.

3. It Ends With Us Review: It Ends With An Unecessary Romance

Colleen Hoover being a popular author, it’s probably not a surprise that this review is one of the most popular posts of the year (even though it was published in 2016). This review highlights some problematic elements to the book.

4. The Ultimate Book Tag: 25 Bookish Questions

Ok, I gotta say I was surprised to see this in the top posts because it was published back in 2015 lol. Looks like most people reading the post were from Google searching for bookish tags, so I guess that makes sense.

5. Why I Didn’t Love The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh 

Another post about a popular book and why I found it problematic. Not a lot of people talk about the problematic elements of this book, so I’m kind of glad that people are taking notice.

Most Popular Instagram Posts

Great to see people loving photos of my bookshelves and of Toby lol. To be completely honest, I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram because the algorithm stresses me out. If you don’t post at least everyday, your engagement level drops significantly and Instagram stops showing your post to your followers. It’s also the platform that requires the most maintenance for me – taking bookish photos, editing them, captioning them, posting everyday, engaging with followers – sometimes it can get a bit too much.

On the upside, I love Instagram stories and often post updates about my thoughts on books, what I’m currently doing, photos and videos of Toby and book haul unboxings. Follow me on Instagram here!

Most Popular Youtube Videos

This year, producing content for Youtube has been a priority of mine and I’m happy to see that such a different variety of videos has been popular.

1. Zenith Rant Review received over 11k views because I had so many thoughts I needed to get out about this book that I DNFed because it was so horrible.

2. 5 Important Things to Being a Book Blogger – I talk about what I’ve learnt about being a book blogger, such as being honest and respectful in your reviews.

3. Most Disappointing Reads of 2017 – Sadly, Warcross and The Sun is Also a Star was featured in this one.

4. Rip it Or Ship It with Jay Kristoff We filmed this video before I hosted his LIFEL1K3 Launch in Brisbane which was so much fun! See if he ships characters from his books together.

Subscribe to my Youtube channel to keep up to date with new videos! 

Reading Stats

This year, I read 121 books which kicked my Goodreads challenge out of the ballpark!

I also managed to read as much as I did back in 2015! It’s been a few years since I’ve managed to read this much and it felt really good to finally delve into some series that I’ve been meaning to get to after a long time.

Book ratings

Out of the 121 books I read this year, here’s the star ratings that I gave them (rounding up half stars). With 52% of books at 4 stars and above, I think it’s been an amazing  reading year. Less than a quarter of the books were 2 stars or below, which I’m really thankful for!

New or past releases

As always, I tend to focus on new release books because I need to review books that I receive from publishers (and also to keep up to date with new books that are out)! 62% were books that were released this year, with 14% of books I read from 2017. I also tried to pick up some books that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time, which is why there’s also a 9% portion of books that were published in 2012 or older. I think I did pretty well with picking up older releases!

Genre of Books Read

40% of the books I read were fantasy and 17% were sci-fi which doesn’t surprise me at all. Fantasy and sci-fi books really are my jam.

Unsurprisingly, 65% of these books were YA and 30% of them were adult reads. I’ve been making a conscious effort to read more widely out of YA as it tends to become formuliac after a while, which is why I managed to read a greater portion of adult books this year.

Re-reads

Because there are so many new release books that I tend to pick up, I never used to re-read books. But this year, I managed to re-read 6 books which was awesome.

  • Raven Boys – I actually listened to this one on audiobook so I could delve into the rest of the series which I have continued. I enjoyed my re-read of the Raven Boys and Dream Thieves was awesome, but Blue Lily, Lily Blue failed to capture my attention because it was way too confusing.
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – I actually re-read this in the hardcover illustrated edition which was a fantastic way to relive the series, in preparation for visiting the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London!
  • An Ember in the Ashes – I wanted to re-read this because everyone was raving about the last book in the series, but unfortunately I ended up downgrading my 4 stars to a 3 star read because I just found it tropey with annoying characters.

  • Illuminae – It’s probably not a surprise to see this on the list, seeing as I re-read this series almost every year but I re-read this on audiobook before picking up Obsidio – which I loved of course!
  • Vicious – I first read this one in 2014, and I re-read it prior to picking up Vengeful, which I absolutely loved! Check out my review on the series here.
  • Saga Vol 3 – I wanted to catch up to the rest of the series which is now up to Volume 9, which I’ve since done so, so I needed to get up to scratch with where it left off.

How many books did you end up reading this year? Do you look at your blogging stats often?

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Jeann is an Aussie YA blogger and mum who loves to read and recommend books! You can usually find me fangirling about books on my various social media channels including Twitter @happyindulgence, Instagram and Youtube.

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20 responses to “2018 Blogging & Reading Stats

  1. What a year it’s been for books though, I’m so glad you enjoyed most of what you’ve read last year, there’s been a few disappointing releases but overall it’s been pretty spectacular hasn’t it. 121 books, you absolutely killed it! I love seeing everyone’s statistics, I’m surprised that you read more fantasy than science fiction though, I know how you love your science fiction reads. It felt as though there weren’t as many released during the year compared to other genres though didn’t it. Here’s to another incredible year of reading Jeann, can’t wait to see what you have planned ♡
    Kelly recently posted…Broken ThingsMy Profile

    • I know, there were SO many amazing new releases and it was such a fantastic new year! Yup, I’m quite picky with my sci-fi actually and I feel like there weren’t that many new sci-fi relases as well. Thank you so much Kelly, I hope you have an amazing year ahead <3

  2. ahh I LOVE this time of year and all the stat posts! I think they’re so interesting?! I do try not to obsess over my blog stats though because I end up stressing but obsess over reading stats? I am right here. All the time. :’) (Probably should work on that lol lol.) And YAY for these rereads! I kind of wanted to reread the Illumiane books before Obsidio but I ended up running out of time. But I did reread 30 books and I’m really happy with that! And I’m glad you had a TON of really good and high star rated books there. Most of my total favourites were rereads.But I still found a lot of good new 5-stars. *flails* Also yas for the fantasy life.!!!

    • Me too, the end of the year posts are definitely my favourite to make and read! Awwww it’s fun to see the stats at the end of the month, I agree! I loved how much you re-read this year, especially considering we never used to reread books lol. YAY for all the new favs of the year!

  3. I read the entire Illuminae series this year and OMG was it amazing. It was also terrible in that it ended, but I have to admit that I liked that there was a little hope that a certain character lasts. 😉 My personal favorite. #nospoilers

    What a year! I think I’ve ended up at around 200 books? If I can finish up a couple more before midnight tomorrow maybe a few more, but it seems to be hovering around there. I’m glad I’ve gotten to listen to a lot more audiobooks this year and found a good alternative to Amazon (Libro.fm is a wonder and supports indie stores!). I wonder what 2019 reading will be like. 😀
    Harker DeFilippis recently posted…Top 5 Wednesday: Books You Didn’t Get to in 2018My Profile

    • YAY I’m so glad to hear that you picked it up and loved it Harker! It’s one of my fav series of all time (tied with Six of Crows)! Woah, 200 books is incredible! Hope you’ve had a great start to the new year.

  4. I mostly read fantasy as well this year, as I usually do haha I don’t think I’ll ever have it happen otherwise. Didn’t quite make it with my blogging because I burnt out a couple months back and deleted it lol I’m restarting it in 2019 with more realistic plans, we’ll see where it goes.

  5. Congratulations, Jeann, on everything you’ve accomplished in this past year! It’s always such a pleasure to see your content out there, read it and watch it, whether it’s on instagram or booktube or read it on your blog. You’re doing such an incredible job and I hope you’ll go on in 2019 and most importantly that you’ll keep on loving it <3 <3

  6. I love how everything is organized. I’m making my blog stats post later today so I may take some of your ideas. My popular posts also seem to be from a few years ago and they never change. I read 56 books this years – lots of picture books! I’ve been looking at my page views recently because I want to try to get that up. Mainly I want to do that so I know I’m putting out more interesting content or at least meaningful to me. I think it would also indicate that I’m reaching out to more blogs which I haven’t consistently done. It is time already that I do so. Hope you have a fabulous reading year in 2019!
    Adriana @ BooksOnHerMind recently posted…Favorite Books of 2018My Profile

  7. Hi, I enjoyed reading your post. It’s great to see how many books you read, and to hear what posts were the most popular.
    I was in a blogging slump this year until August, so my stats weren’t that good, they are better now, but when you look at the whole year, they could have been better.
    I also reviewed more backlisted titles, bc I had so many unread books at home, and that’s the path I’m taking in 2019 too so I am already prepared for lower number of page views, because new releases are always more popular then backlisted titles. But my personal goal to read as many books I already own is to me more important then blog stats.
    Irena BookDustMagic recently posted…Movie Monday: Married by Christmas and Call Me Mrs. Miracle #MovieReview #ChristmasMovie #Christmas #MarriedByChristmas #CallMeMrsMiracleMy Profile

    • Thank you so much for stoppping by Irena! I completely agree, I’ve got a reading goal set to read more owned books off my shelf too. Sometimes backlist titles are our favourite reads because it’s not a new release that everyone is talking about! Have a lovely start to 2019!

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