State of the Blog: Four Years Later

 

It's that time again. Another year for the blog has come and gone, so it means that it's time to reflect on how things went and how I feel for the future of the blog as we approach year five. It's funny. I honestly thought this would be another dead project, but the fact that not only are we entering year five but also nearing blog #500 is enough of a reason to talk about how things went down for year four. Was it a good year, a bad year, or just an okay year? Let's break free from this preamble and cover the fourth blog year.

2023-2024 was probably my most consistent year when it came to regular updates. Even in the beginning of 2024 as January to around March are usually my sluggish months. Over 70 blogs done from when we left off in late June 2023, taking us closer to the vaunted 500th blog, which I still haven't wrapped my head around. Either that's a sign that I still have my groove or a sign that I really have put more devotion to this blog than I would have ever expected. And in terms of books blogged, we continued on a solid grab bag of stuff. The three new Goosebumps books released around this year period, along with Slime Doesn't Pay! means that modern Stine was well represented this year. We even covered Stine's first horror book with Blind Date and oh yeah, it definitely felt like Stine's first book. We also kept Goosebumps prevalent with a heavier push for the sidebar blogs in A Case of the Bumps. Which work to do something more than just a re-read or a re-review of a book. Though I have considered re-reads for a few books, likely not all of them, but I would like to put fresh eyes on some books, mainly Series 2000. We'll see if I feel that way down the line.

Fear Street wasn't as heavily pushed this year, at least until the latter end of the year as I finally covered two of the remaining three trilogies and yeah, they were insane. One for having perhaps the most bonkers second part and the other for feeling like Stine had no idea what he was doing and put out an absolute mess that may be up there in terms of Stine's strangest works. I'm still interested in covering other Stine stuff as I did hint at wanting to touch Mostly Ghostly, so maybe year 5 will be the one. And there's another Stine book on the way that hopefully I won't take as long to pick up and review. Would make a perfect finale for the third (Woo!) Party Summer coming up. 

In terms of the other blogs, we brought Baby-Sitters Club back for three more blogs, with another on the way soon. We're nearing the end of the Ghosts of Fear Street line, and what we have covered are some interesting trips to kid-friendly Shadyside. Another series briefly broken into was Bailey School Kids, which will also be returning soon. Shivers got a mega push this year now with the added wrinkle of the Russian Roulette concept in which I blind read each book and see if it's tame or if I get the bullet in the chamber, the really insane book. Although I think we peaked with Weirdo Waldo's Wax Museum. Bone Chillers got a few additions, same with Deadtime Stories, we wrapped up Screammates, had another quick trip into the Weird Zone, and even endured the first Barf-O-Rama book. Now all I need to do is finally get back into covering Animorphs and I think we're back to the races. 

So overall, this was a decent year for content. But I do feel like it's the first year that I haven't felt as satisfied with how the blogs have done views wise. Some of you may notice I pulled way back on Point books after The Lifeguard last year. You also may have noticed the lack of Fear Street stuff until recently. Well, honestly, they haven't done that great in views. Especially some of the trilogies and even books like The Boy Next Door. Which sucks honestly because I feel those are the blogs I've exceled at the most in the past few years. The ones where I let my creative juices and critical feelings come out to play. So it does feel a little disheartening to see them often lag in terms of views over some of the other stuff. Which is interesting to consider given we're entering the real end game stuff with classic era Fear Street as well as with Stine's Point content. With some of these books being ones I have to purchase via ebay or hope that they end up at a thrift store or second hand book shop. Would it be worth shilling out insane prices for a copy of Cat or The Best Friend 2 if the interest isn't there? I likely would want to anyway out of my own love for the blogs, but knowing they won't get that much traffic makes me feel like that passion for them won't be seen by enough people.

There's also the other looming issue on the horizon. Two actually. The first being that we are reaching the end of some series. Ghosts of Fear Street is at a scant few books left, while Shivers is rapidly approaching as are some of the other series. So we may be finally reaching the point where I just can't find the books I need to cover for the blog. There's also the other major issue and that's the concern over the future of Internet Archive and Open Library. Open Library has been a godsend for this blog and the main reason we've been able to get access to most of the books I've needed for review. But they could face an inevitable shutdown. Hell, them losing half a million eBooks doesn't bode well already for where it will end up. So hopefully we still have plenty of time left with it to help keep this blog chugging along.

And then there's Skeleton Picnic. I dropped the ball on it last year, which wasn't intentional. I actually enjoyed the couple of Are You Afraid of the Dark blogs I managed to get done this year. I still intend to bring it back, hopefully very soon. I still want to start to take up more of an interest in horror and I want the blog to help in building that. And given I love my reviews and recaps, moving forward on Skeleton Picnic may help with that. But for now it's mostly focus on getting to 500 blogs. And we're super close. Likely as close as this August depending on how the next couple months go. So look forward to that.

Status on other things I still want to do eventually. 

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew: Not yet. Still in the "maybe" pile.

Bailey School Kids: Underway and new blogs coming soon.

The Babysitters Club: More on the way.

Sweet Valley: I want to do them but they hinge on if there's an audience wanting me to cover them.

Wayside: Still being considered. 

Post-Animorphs Applegate (EverWorld/Remnants): I swear Animorphs will be back. I have every book so I have no excuse. So maybe when I finally kick myself in the ass and return to Animorphs proper will I cover the other Applegates. Though, I technically already have with Barf-O-Rama. 

More adult works (King for example): Again. Need to know if there's an interested audience.

Older works (The Oz or Tolkien books for example): Still trying to find a way to spin this.

Books based on stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who: Still not opposed.

The books with the boy wizard: It's amazing. Here we are a year later and she's just gotten worse. So yeah, we aren't doin' them.

Year four was a frustrating year for views on particular blogs, but a good year for my blogs when it comes to reviews and opinions. I feel it's my best year in terms of the evolution of my work. It will be fun to see how year five goes and if I improve or lag behind. But for those who do still view and read, thanks for helping me get to 100,000+ views overall and make it to 500 blogs. Hopefully with many more to come.