My top 10 blog hits of 2012

I’m a total nerd when it comes to statistics – you won’t be surprised to learn that I was the statistician for my high school football team instead of playing any sports myself – so one thing I love about the new year is looking back at the blog posts that people seemed to like the most.

I’d like to say thank you to the very generous authors and publishing professionals who wrote guest posts and did interviews and giveaways on my blog. And to the readers who come back week after week, you guys totally make my day. THANK YOU!

Here are the posts that got the most traffic in 2012, though some of them were written in 2011 or even 2010 (the power of good search engine terms and links). If you missed any of these, I hope you see something that takes your fancy and you’ll take a moment to read it now.

1. What can you do with an English degree?
This is far and away my most popular post, and every day dozens of people find my site by searching for this question. There are obviously a lot of confused, worried English majors out there.

2. Describing how a man smells
I thought this post would be helpful for writers. Turns out that most of the people who find it now are searching for terms like “smelly man butt”. Go figure.

3. Ten tips on writing characters with accents, by Rose Lerner
One of my favorite posts by one of my favorite authors. A must-read for anyone writing characters who have a regional accent.

4. Five things romance writers should know about vaginas
Without a doubt, my favorite post that I’ve ever written, probably because I learned so much myself when researching it. WordPress doesn’t even seem to recognize “vaginas” as a word.

5. Interview with Julianne MacLean – & giveaway!
My most popular interview with a romance author, and Julianne was so lovely that she increased the number of books she was giving away from one to three because so many people were commenting.

6. Why my romance novel hero is the ugliest man in the world
Who knew that the phrase “massive penis” would be so highly searched for? I might have to add it to every post I write from now on. Here it is again: “massive penis”

7. Guest post by Sara Megibow: being a feminist romance reader
Literary agent Sara Megibow was so generous to write this for me, and even more generous to link to it from her Publishers Marketplace bio for a while. It’s still one of the best posts I’ve read on why feminists should feel no shame in reading romance.

8. How do you know if you’re a good writer?
It seems I’m not the only person asking myself this, judging by the number of people searching for it.

9. Interview with Sherry Thomas – and giveaway!
Sherry Thomas is one of my favorite authors, and I was thrilled when she agreed to do an interview. She’s so lovely and clever, and I’m glad that readers agree with me and have regularly sought out this interview as a way to get to know her better.

10. Differences in British and American English (for writers)
Some differences in vocabulary are well known (e.g. “flat” vs “apartment”), but there are lots of nuances that set our two countries’ languages apart. I wrote this to help other writers, and hopefully the fact that it’s in my top ten means that it has been helpful.

What were your favorite blog posts in 2012 – either ones that you wrote for your own blog or ones you read on other people’s sites? What would you like to see more of in 2013?