Hourglass Year In Review 2024

The end of 2024 completes the first full calendar year of The Hourglass. I opened the blog in 2023 to accompany my writing career. Because I am obsessed with data, here’s how the blog fared in 2024.

In terms of views, numbers were up, overall, compared to the partial year of 2023. Traffic was up 360% — which is what you get when you start with small numbers — and bounce rate, unique visitors, and page views all showed similar improvement. My best months were February and November, with lowest numbers coming in the middle of the summer -- winter weather must be the time for mystery readers.

Here’s everything that was published in 2023:

• What Did Raymond Chandler Have Against Cats?

• Columbo Fever

• The Man For The Job

• Search Me

• The Story Wall

• Shelf Conscious

• Judge Dredd

• Secret Society

• Red Lines

• No One Will Believe You

• Thursday Affair

• No One By The Numbers

• Thursday By The Numbers

• Teddy’s Favorite Thing Is A Derringer Award Finalist

• Teddy’s Favorite Thing Is An Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award Winner

• The Wisdom of Wally Wood

• Edgar Awards 2024

• Exploring the Amazon

• On The Record 

• Maximizing Bob

• Cat Beats Cop

• Glorious Bastards

• Font Of Knowledge

• Legends of the Dracorex

• Scapple Of My Eye

• Viewpoint Shifts In The Thin Red Line

• You Become What You Measure

• Gumshoe Frankenstein Wins Speculative Literature Foundation Grant 

• Lost Cats And Orphans In The Storm 

• As You See The World

• The World By The Numbers

The top ten articles of the year, in terms of engagement:

1. The Wisdom of Wally Wood: Might be the platonic ideal of an Hourglass post, as it’s about writing craft, but it’s also about comics. Picked up a little aggregation love from other blogs, accounting for the extra views.

2. Judge Dredd: “Reprint” from my Longbox Graveyard comics blog.

3. 2023 By The Numbers: Published late in 2023, this blog gave all the numbers and details of the start of my writing career, and saw traffic throughout the year. I gave this one a continuing push on Twitter, too.

4. Teddy's Favorite Thing: One of my earliest posts from 2023, which served as an anchor reference for other news about this story in 2024.

5. Teddy By The Numbers: Likewise.

6. Teddy's Favorite Thing Is A Derringer Award Finalist: There was a flurry of news and linking around my debut story getting some awards attention in 2024.

7. Gumshoe Frankenstein Wins Speculative Literature Foundation Grant: Welcome news for my unpublished novel came late in the year.

8. The Man For The Job: Another Longbox Graveyard reprint, this time about Nick Fury. I’m running thin on comics reprints that plausibly overlap with crime writing …

9. Scapple of My Eye: My appreciation of a mind-mapping tool as an outlining solution caught the attention of the software’s publisher, which earned a few views.

10. The Story Wall: A post about how I encourage myself to write earned encouraging views.

I’m still dialing in publication frequency. I started the year publishing weekly, and transitioned to twice-monthly in April (with no noticeable impact on readership). I will probably go to a once-per-month schedule in 2025, with bonus posts as news requires.

Growth of the blog will depend on how actively I support social media sites outside of Twitter, which has predictably declined in value following its descent into a pro-fascist hellsite. (Sigh). Every week I think about better applying myself to Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky … and every week I find myself thinking I’d rather spend that time writing.