Welcome to the May 2017 edition of the “End of the Month Review”!  It’s been a busy month around here, which I’m happy for! Let’s get started seeing what all happened during the month! At the end of April, I was up to 50 followers here on WordPress. At the end of this month, I’m up to 74!! Yay!! Thank you to all of my new followers and please, keep spreading the news around about the site!

 

Site Statistics in May

This month was my best month since I began the blog in April 2016. I always find it interesting not only to see how many people visited my blog, but where they’re from as well. In May, I had 405 views from 165 visitors from 15 countries! For me, that’s really exciting and a lot! While the number of visitors only went up by about 40 since the month of April, the amount of posts they viewed almost doubled! I feel like I’m really starting to gain a fan base now and it’s exciting to see how it grows month by month!

I had a total of 18 posts this month that garnered 104 likes and 35 comments. 11 posts were for reviewing books, 2 of which reviewed multiple books. Three (3) of the review posts also had author interviews. 1 post had 4 mini reviews, 1 was a book tag post, 1 was a blogger award post, 1 was a spotlight post, and 3 were general/other posts, one of which was a post for Mental Health Awareness month where I talked about mental illness and stigma.

Books Read & Reviewed in May

During the month of May, I read a total of 19 books – 16 cozy mysteries, 2 non-cozy/thriller mysteries, and 1 middle grade children’s fiction book. I reviewed a total of 15 books this month (including 2 books that were read in April) and wrote mini reviews for 4 books.

I currently have the next set of mini reviews for the Bibliophile Mystery series by Kate Carlisle almost done, but they won’t get posted tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. I’m trying to get all the mini reviews done before the 11th book comes out next week on the 6th.

I still have 2 reviews from books read in April that are in draft format. One of them I’m close to finishing. The other might turn into a mini review as it’s also part of a longish series that I need to write at least mini reviews for. 🙂

Reading Challenges Progress in May

I made progress on several of my reading challenges during the month of May. For the purpose of Goodreads (and many of my challenges), 3 of my cozy mysteries only counted as 1 book as it was a box set

• Goodreads 2017 Challenge – I read 17 books total in May, bringing my total to 81.
• Pages Read 2017 Challenge – I read 4,759 pages during the month of May, bringing my total to 22,299 pages.
• EBooks 2017 Challenge – I read a total of 14 eBooks, bringing my total to 51.
• Library Love 2017 Challenge – I read 1 library book, bringing my total to 24.
• Craving for Cozies 2017 Challenge – I read a total of 14 cozy mysteries for a total of 52.
• Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – I read another Agatha Christie book this month. I’ve slowed down on reading them since I’ve had so many blog tours lately, but I managed to squeeze in one this month. 🙂

Looking forward to June

During the month of June, I’ll be participating in 5 blog tours and have 1 review that’s not part of a blog tour. One of my blog tours is not a review, just an author interview. I have tentatively scheduled 4 other books for review in between the blog tours and other review that I have already scheduled. The other 4 include three that I need to read for NetGalley reviews and the newest Kate Carlisle book, Once Upon a Spine.

Here are the books that are definitely on the menu for June:

          

          

I decided to try something new for myself. I created a separate Google calendar for blogging and have been tentatively scheduling books from my back list in between my blog tours and other obligations. This month, I’ve managed 2 books from my TBR pile in between blog tours and other reviews. Next month, I have 4 that I tentatively scheduled, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping that this will help me both a) get caught up on my backlist of reviews for NetGalley and b) help me be more consistent about making content for my blog. We’ll see how it goes. I say that they’re tentatively scheduled so that it gives me the opportunity to change-up what I read in those slots. Maybe I don’t want to read the new Nora Roberts book yet (yeah, right!) so I can choose something else in its place. I’m hoping that this will help keep me accountable and yet provide flexibility so I don’t end up seeing all my reviewing/reading as a chore and not pleasurable anymore.

These are the tentatively scheduled books:

              

They may change depending on what I decide I really want to read, but those are tentatively the planned books. We’ll see if this new plan/calendar idea works!