I didn’t blog much in 2016: only 59 posts, exactly half as much as 2015 (which itself was a super low-volume year: a new site built several months into the year following an extended period of not blogging). So I had fewer visitors: 64,077, down from 84,620. The top post was Coming Out as a Cripple, which attracted 5,093 people. The blog has close to 1,500 followers who see the posts by email or on another platform and so don’t register as part of that number.
Here are the most popular posts of 2016:
- Coming Out As a Cripple
- How to Defeat an Autocrat: Flocking Behaviour
- Books About Women Don’t Win Big Awards: Some Data *
- Mass Murder and the Consequences of Hate
- Lame is So Gay *
- Speak Out: You Might Make a Difference
- Brexit-Related Death and Decline
- UK R.I.P
- Huge News: Multiple Sclerosis is a Metabolic Disorder *
- The Women You Didn’t See *
Four of the posts (*) were perennials. One, the Tiptree essay, went up in full on the site only this year, though, so depending how you look at it maybe it should be classified as new for 2016. Some of the posts either were published elsewhere first or appeared subsequently in other media.
This might be the first time that the top ten were almost wholly political, whether on a global scale or more personal. Not surprising, really, given the year we’ve had.
The top ten countries where my readers live haven’t shown much change. This is, essentially, a site for English speakers, which makes sense seeing as the posts are written in English and my books appear first in English. Here’s the list, in order:
- US
- UK
- Canada
- Australia
- Germany
- Sweden
- France
- Ireland
- New Zealand
- Netherlands
No surprises regarding how readers were referred to the blog. The top three, in order of number of referrals (though frankly there’s not much between them):
Fewer, though still significant, referrals came via my old blog. I’ll probably leave it up for another year or two.
I’m guessing I’ll blog more next year but I’m still engaged in three large projects and numerous smaller ones, and the universe has a habit of laughing at plans, so we’ll see.
Nicola Griffith 
I don’t think there is way for you to measure it, but I wonder how many of your blog readers forward some of your posts for friends who don’t follow your blog. I sometimes forward some of your blog posts. I preface by saying “here is another brilliant blog post by that author who I don’t have time to read, but I read her blog.” Also, I’m curious. How many classes have your books on their syllabi I wonder?
@Kelly: I’ve no idea what percentage do that; I’m guessing that occasionally it’s significant but there’s no way to know (or at least I currently don’t know how to find out).
As for teaching, the answer is: a fair few places. Again, I don’t know how many. At any one time, though, either of my SF novels, the whole set of Aud, and Hild are probably being taught somewhere in the US, UK, and Australia. They’re taught in Canada and New Zealand, too, but not as much. And occasionally in countries with a high proportion of English speakers such as Germany, Netherlands, Sweden etc.