A Week in Writing #71 - A Look Back at 2015 in Blogging

I started this blog for what might be called selfish reasons; trying to keep myself on track with writing. My goal has been to write 1000 words a day and sometimes that's what it really feels like, a goal. Even though the page views here can sometimes be counted on one hand, I'm obviously not doing this for fame or fortune. The lowest number this year has been 1 and the most 24, but I usually average 7 or 8 a week.

The other blog I write for, Trophy Unlocked, is more of a passion than anything else. I really love movies and the chance to write about them was one that I couldn't pass up when I was offered the opportunity. One of the benefits is that I get to indulge in learning more about films and then writing about it. Think of me as an aggregator of cine information.

Additionally, I also review some of the movies my family and I watch in the theaters. Add to that a couple of Review Hubs, an end of the year Highlights list and I published 70 posts in 2015, with a new one every Saturday morning. This past week, I posted a review for Roadblock (1951) on Saturday, one for The Good Dinosaur (2015) and a 2015 Highlights post, both on the 31st.

I'm never sure what makes a post get page views. I post on both Facebook and Twitter every time I post a review. In addition, to that I will also tweet out some anniversaries which also add to the page views. But I'm not really sure what drives anyone to view a post. I know that it helps when the Warner Archive re-tweets one of mine. They're good for about 60 to 70 additional page views. But that's not always the case.

I had thought Star Wars month, which is how we spent December on the blog, might draw more page views, but I was only partially right about that. The introductory post, A Month of Star Wars, only garnered 30 page views. The first review of the month, Star Wars: Clone Wars was a little better with 41. Things started to look up with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which had 110 and 163 respectively. But we came back to Earth with The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi which garnered only 34 and 29. Maybe the anticipation was satisfied with the release of the new film.

Of all the posts I published in 2015, the one with the most page views was The Blackboard Jungle (1955) which has had, since I published it in May, 239 page views. Why Blackboard Jungle? I don't really have an answer. By the way, the most page views of a review of mine was Robocop (1987), but I think that's due to a slightly salacious photo we included. The All-Time champ for one review wasn't mine, but Paul's review of  Batman: Arkham Unhinged #2 , a comic book, which has 23,274 page views. No other post on the blog is even close.

But despite the page views, I plan to continue with both blogs for the forseeable future. Thanks to everyone for your page views. I do appreciate it.