Monday, June 16, 2014

Six Year Blogoversary: Day 2 + Giveaway!



Starting June 15th, we will be celebrating the blog's 6 year blogoversary with fun posts and giveaways. The party will end June 21st. 

Check back each day for a new post and giveaway. The daily giveaways will each last 24 hours, and all winners will be picked and announced on the 22nd! 

I will also be running a grand prize giveaway (one for US residents and one for INT readers). These giveaways can be found HERE, and will run until June 21st, with the winner also being announced the following day. Good luck and have fun!



The Blog In Numbers

Since the start of the blog in 2008, we've posted over 1350 posts. Reviews, interviews, giveaways, L4Cs, etc, etc. That's an average of 216 posts each year. In reality, some years the blog was busy, other years I was busy . . . and therefore away from the blog.

2008 – 86 posts
2009 – 151 posts
2010 – 91 posts
2011 – 53 posts
2012 – 278 posts
2013 – 378 posts
2014 (to date) – 330 posts

In 2011, when my vision problems started, I was also finishing up my associates degree. I took time off from blogging, only posting once or twice a week. But in 2012 and 2013, I made up for it, especially as I added my co-reviewers.

I've also started to participate in a lot of spotlight blog tours, for when I do not have time to review a book I'm interested in, or interview the author, but still wish to help promote it. Spotlights are quick and fairly easy, and I know they make up a good percentage of my monthly posts. 


Genres:

We cover almost every sub-genre in the romance world, but some more so than others.

A good example is M/M romance, which I have only recently starting reading. I've done 6 reviews for this new-to-me genre.

We've reviewed almost 310 contemporaries on the blog. It's the one genre we all have in common!

There are just under 100 historical reviews on the blog (funny, as this was the first romance genre I fell in love with, long before the blog; but I've had a dry spell with this genre of late, and it's not a genre that Kame, Musing Maddie or Pat review often).

New Adult, which has become a very popular genre in the last few years, has already been reviewed 40 times.

Paranormal, another first love of mine, is also just under 100 reviews.

YA, which I do not read as much of as I once did (there are only a handful of authors from this genre that I still buy), covers 40 reviews.

Romantic Suspense, a genre that all four of us have read and enjoyed over the years, has 50 reviews.

We also cover erotica, with 35 reviews. However erotica is not an easy genre to identify; what one reader may call “extremely dirty” another reader may call “tame” :)

As you can see, contemporary has become our favorite genre on the blog, by far! That surprised me, as I thought PNR and Historical were much higher than what they are. Clearly I need to jump back into these genres and fix that! 

This just proves that we all have different tastes in books, and our moods change as well. Perhaps by next year's blogoversary another genre will be more popular with us.


Total number of reviews to date . . . 550!

Total number of author interviews . . . 71

Total number of author guest posts . . . 77

Total number of character interviews . . . 11

Total number of Lusting for Covers . . . 181 (that is a LOT of sexy covers, especially since each week at least 4 other readers share their picks, too!).



Which post do you think is the most “popular”, based on page views of all time?

*drum roll *


This fun discussion that Kame and I did in 2013 has seen over 2,420 page views, which, according to Blogger, is the most viewed post of all time. I know that many of you love the dual reviews and discussions! 



And which author do you think has been on the blog the most?

It's a tie between the following authors, all of whom have been guests 3 times each Wendy Vella, Jessica Scott, Carrie Ann Ryan, Ranae Rose, and Sarah M. Anderson!


Which author do you think we've reviewed the most?

It looks like the winner is Ranae Rose, with 9 books, all reviewed by Kame!


Runners-up include Jessica Scott, Pamela Clare, Chelsea M. Cameron, Ruthie Knox, Jasinda Wilder, and Sarah M. Anderson. We've reviewed a minimum of 6 books from each of them!



~TheBookQueen








a Rafflecopter giveaway


Giveaway ends June 16th at 11:59 AM. Winner will be picked and announced at the end of the blogoversary -- June 22nd. 

If the winner is from the US, they will receive the journal shown above. If they are INT, they will receive a $10 gift card to CafePress instead.









This giveaway will only run 24 hours. All winners will be announced and contacted on June 22nd, when the blogoversary is over.

Remember, the GRAND PRIZE Giveaways ends June 21st though, so there is plenty of time to enter that one. Good luck!


Question: Do you have a favorite post?




Enjoy!

Until Next Time,

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  *TBQ's Book Palace is a member of both the Amazon and Barnes and Nobles affiliates program. By using the links provided to buy products from either website, I receive a very small percentage of the order. To read my full disclosure on the matter, please see this post!

11 comments :

celeste said...

Thanks for the chance! :) And Happy Blogoversary again ;)

Arely Z. said...

So many good ones, I can't choose!

Janie said...

Pamela Clare is one of my favorite authors and I loved the post that introduced "Striking Distance."

The_Book_Queen said...

:D We like to hear that, thank you!

The_Book_Queen said...

Oh, her posts, whether it's a review or an interview, are always very popular, so I'm glad you loved it!

alyn said...

I first started following you because of your Historical Romance reviews. I admit, I was quite surprised when I came back after a long break from the book blog world and saw that you were reviewing so many different genres. This is a good thing, not a bad thing, since I love hearing about books from other genres too even if I don't read some of them that much.

Sophia Rose said...

I found getting your post breakdown fascinating. It made me take a peek at my genre review habits over the last few years. My biggest choice was Contemporary too and that surprised me b/c HR and PNR/UF are my preference, but not predominantly what publishers and authors request for review apparently. I think last year will be my big author interview year. This year its predominantly reviews with a few guest posts or spotlights a month. We have Jessica Scott in common as an author I've both reviewed and had visit with special posts.
Anyhoo! Looks like you have a good blend of things now.

The_Book_Queen said...

I really do need to get back to Historicals. I'm not sure why I strayed away from them for so long! But it's like anything else, I suppose; once you get out of the habit, it's hard to get back into it. My goal this year is to read more historicals though. Suggestions? :)


And I'm glad that you've stuck with us even as we have diversified our genre offerings!


Enjoy,
TBQ

The_Book_Queen said...

Exactly! I remember when I used to frown at contemporary romances, thinking they couldn't possibly be anything but boring when compared to shifters and vamps and ball rooms and highlanders! LOL. Now I know better, of course, and apparently I've become rather fond of the genre of late! Not a bad thing, but I do need to go back to more HR and PNRs!


Oh, we all loooove Scott here! :)

alyn said...

No suggestions because I've strayed from them for a while now too.

Anna@herding cats&burning soup said...

It's crazy seeing how it breaks down isn't it?? I haven't tracked by genre but love that. Funny to see which authors pop up over and over again. I've had Scott on a few times too :)