The 10 Most Viewed Posts In The last 6 Months

Here's a list of posts that were most viewed in the last six months! With some of them it was not really a surprise that they had so many views, but some others did catch me by sweet surprise! If you haven't checked out one of these posts, do check them out!

1. Three Men In A Boat : I have to mention this here- This post is also my all time highest viewed post with 19.9K views, and 50 comments, all thanks to Class IX CBSE non-detailed reading prescribed as this novel. I have the funniest relationship with the readers of this review- with more than half of them thanking me for saving them for their "Hitler" teachers! I wrote this review way back in 2011, and the review is as childish, simple, and sweet as I was back then! But, till today- it's my most viewed most on any given time frame!

2. Parthiban Kanavu : This book is a beauty. I love Kalki. And, I am so grateful for the translation by Dr. M. S.Venkatraman for bringing us this classic in a language we can comfortably read!

3. Normative, Positive, Others: In The Analysis Of Law : I was a little surprised by this one, because it was slightly more academic in contrast to the majority of art/literary based posts, or the fun posts, that I usually write! Also, it set me to thinking if I should write more of these small, concise academic posts. What do you think?

4. The Room On The Roof and The Vagrants In The Valley : Not surprised, this has also consistently been a top-viewed post on the blog since many years now.

5. Iah: A Musical Feature : I am so very, very happy this featured among the most-viewed posts in the last six months. I am really happy that a feature on my musician-friend met a wide audience!

6. Murder In Beltour : This story-series that I wrote has been so well-supported, well-received by all. So many people took out the time to comment and text me on what they liked. I am elated.

7. Gripped In Doubt : This short story that I wrote also received a lot of attention, and people came forward to tell me how much they enjoyed it. This post making a cut in the most-viewed definitely has put a smile on my face. 

8. From Doon With Death : One of my favorite reads this year!

9. Tanmay: A Poetic Feature : Another young, talented poet-friend I featured! I can only say, thank you readers for supporting all of us!

10. A Quick Reminder: When Did You Last Review Your Privacy Settings? : When was it? If it was way too far back in the past that you don't even remember- go check now!

Is there a post of mine that you enjoyed specifically? Let me know in the comments!

Why It Is Important To Maintain An Editorial

In my earlier post on 10 Things You Can Blog About, I had mentioned how keeping an editorial list ready to publish on your blog can take your writing a long way, because then you'd have something to go up anyway, and you would be stressing about what to write for what would go up on another day. Primarily, this will make sure you aren't writing for the sake of just putting up something. 

Keeping a running editorial also ensured that I have a post for every single day, especially since I have been blogging for almost the last 9 months in a row. There are some days when I have other things to do, or some other work has to be given priority, and I might not have the time to work on a post as much as I'd like to. So, I always had a set of well-written posts that that could go up even on those days. But, did I warn you of a challenge that comes up with it?

Having a nice set of posts that are ready to go up each day also requires maintaining such a line of posts so that you don't have trouble for content later. Imagine you have 10 posts, and you have been posting one each day without writing anything new. You wouldn't even realize 10 days pass by, and will be caught in surprise on the 11th day. Sometimes, you make do with random thoughts in your head, written in a hurry. And, that is precisely what you want to avoid by maintaining the editorial. 

Take an example- like today. My mind was off on a couple of other things for the past week, until I come to realize that I have exhausted all the happy, leisurely posts that I had written. I hadn't read anything new either. So, I write a post on the thing that is on the top of my mind right now- why it is important to keep up an editorial. 

 The key to a good blog is writing regularly. For daily bloggers and writers, and generally all content creators, I think having a set of ready content all the time is very important. It ensures both consistency and quality with no compromises. It is a lesson well learnt, and I am looking forward to this weekend when I rebuild this precious life-saving stream of content that helps me on the days I am truly busy.

Taglines

Taglines. They bring a world of difference to whatever we go. In fact, I think sometimes the taglines talk more than the name or the title. 

Nike- Just Do It

Apple- Think Different

Coca-cola- Open Happiness

My most favourite library in Chennai that I grew up reading all the books I had read till my schooling was Eloor. The library branch in Chennai shut down, but they had a tagline that is still very close to my heart, and that which rang true with the very essence of that huge, wonderful library: For love of good books! Eloor did absolute justice to its tagline.

Taglines are not just for companies or brands. They can be for anything, including blogs and even blog posts. They all tell you something about the brand/blog/article/post/whatever that is you are viewing. A tagline is supposed to help anyone get to know very quickly, in a manner catchy, short, and sweet, what they should be expecting.

When I started this blog, I definitely wanted to have a tagline and I looked into defining what my blog was primarily going to be about. I write a lot of things, but what gives my blog its primary identity is the books I read and the reviews I write for them. I read regularly and I write a post on every book I read. My blog is just a huge repository of all that I have read since 2010! And, what does that give my readers? A reading list across varied age groups! Because I grew up with these books, the books are in the natural progression of an actual reader, and it feels like an index of books with a review by me on each book. 

And, that is why, I chose the tagline that tells you exactly what to expect. It is a blog on 'What to Read'. Taglines can be of various tones. It can talk about the spirit, the function, the motto- anything! But, a tagline helps immensely. For all the bloggers out there, do you have a tagline? If you do, share it in the comments with your blog links! And, if you don't, go with what you feel, and: get set thinking! 

Happy Saturday! 

What Kind Of Posts Get The Most Views?

Continuous, regular blogging has given me the opportunity to clearly see what kind of posts get the views. It's not possible to analyse this without blogging regularly, because then the number of views is affected by the irregularity itself. While the stats have definitely shown an unbelievable(but totally believable) growth, there is still some types of posts that get more attention that others!

To begin: what do I write about? I write a lot of-

1. Book reviews

2. Movie reviews (sometimes, because I don't really watch a lot)

3. My thoughts on almost anything at all

4. The food that I try preparing, with their recipes

5. About things that I try learning, and the tools that I use

6. Fillers: those kind of random posts I write in between the posts I seriously write

7. Stories

There are also other kind of posts, but you could probably majorly classify them to these kinds in the past year. What gets the top views is the fillers, I guess people like reading random stuff that may not make a great addition to their knowledge or experience, but are nevertheless fun to read. Usually, these are my memories from school, or me writing about a mundane observation. The next thing that gets the viewers queuing is my stories, and this makes me very, very happy. I write short pieces, and I even tried writing a series of chapters with a running story line titled Murder In Beltour. I was so happy with the amount of people who read it and got in touch with me to tell me how much they liked it! People also appreciate with a really startling number of views when I talk about a new learning or a new tool. I guess this might be the kind of post with a take-away, introducing cool tools that make life a little bit easier!

But, my blog is about and has primarily always been about: what to read. I read a lot. I love reading. I have loved reading since my Famous Five years, and I love writing about what I love in them. It has made me so happy in the last 6-7 months when so many friends have taken the time out to text me, saying: 'Hey Sandhya, I picked this book up to read only because I saw your review of it, and I love it', or 'Hey, I didn't know about this book, it seems really cool- I just bought it to read'. It makes me very happy that a review can make someone want to read it. 

And yet, the blog does have things to offer beyond books. I have had a couple of friends who are not much into reading that they enjoy other posts where I talk about my thoughts or experiences. One even joked that they get to read so many books and know about them without reading them (though I told her that's not what the reviews are for). My point is, I am happy to have so many happy readers. Recently, a very kind, happy reader left such a sweet comment on the blog!

I will continue writing all these kinds of posts, and I hope you all get something out o it! Let me know in the comments what kind of posts you love reading!

Wait, are you wondering what kind of post this was?

10 Things You Can Blog About

Do you have a blog? And, are there days when you don't know what to write about? Here are some ideas from what I have written about and explored in the last 194 days of blogging everyday across various subjects- books, movies, stories, art, life, law, and more!

1. Write about a hobby, or something that you learnt to make/do recently.

2. Review a book, movie, game, product, service, food, or anything at all that you used, watched, or read. 

3. Elaborate on a thought inside your head. 

4. Write about the favourite people you admire (with or without names).

5. Write about places. 

6. Write a poem.

7. Write a story, or you can run a chapter series with 1-2 chapters of your story every week. I'm thinking about trying this out. 

8. Pitch an idea. If you want to collaborate on something, then let people know how to contact you so that anyone who reads the post, and is interested to work with you, can ping you!

9. Share anything interesting that you came across in the recent past. Or, share the interesting resources that you use/come across with your readers.  

10. Rant. And, provide actionable solutions, if you can.

There are so many other ideas, and once you get that small hitch, it's happy writing till you hit that publish button. Keeping an editorial list ready to publish on your blog can take your writing a long way, because then you'd have something to go up anyway, and you would be stressing about what to write for what would go up on another day! This will make sure you aren't writing for the sake of just putting up something. 

If you enjoy reading my posts you can subscribe and read them in the comfort of your inbox!

Also, I have a series of chapters ready to roll out as an interesting short tale for you all, with two chapters coming out every week! I am very excited to have my first chapter up tomorrow! 

So stay tuned, and see you tomorrow!

If This Then That: Cool Way To Get Your Social Media Formulas

I put up a blog post everyday. And, then I sometimes get busy with other work, and forget to share it out there on social media. While I have a fair share of regular readers and subscribers to the blog, it is still unfair to expect people to know about a new post unless you put it out there for them to see. 

Promoting your content is as important as writing your content. It is true that when you maintain a regular blog, there is a lot of automatic traffic and audience, with a sharp increase in number of daily and weekly readers. But, it is still important to reach out, and (shamelessly) promote. Twitter, Instagram and the likes can reach a much wider audience than one can think of, and that is why it is important to put it out there for all of them to read and comment. 

IFTTT, short for "If This Then That", does just that for me! It is a free web-based service that creates chains of simple conditional statements, called applets. An applet is triggered by changes that occur within other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, Pinterest and numerous other social platforms. It is free, and also a premium version is available for businesses. 

My beautiful autopost formula on IFTTT reads this:

If any new post on your blog, then post a tweet with an image to @sandhya_varadh

Uh, excuse the subtle twitter promotions. But, the point is that the platform is brilliant. You can substitute the underlined part with any available service, and there are tons available! Not only is this useful for people like me in order to auto-post on a social media platform, it is also useful to set alarms, reminders, emails, and can work brilliantly for businesses.

The interface is also very user-friendly with a cool and simple design. IFTTT also has an app with a simple and elegant user-friendly design.

For all those who are looking for something similar, check this out!