Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The Good & The Bad

I've been searching for a trade size edition of Kate Westbrook's "The Moneypenny Diaries - Secret Servant", published by John Murray in 2006, for several years now.  So when I discovered a secondhand bookstore in Queensland (Lawnton Books) had a copy I immediately purchased it.  The book arrived in the mail today.  It's the first new Bond cover I'll be adding to PizGloria.com in 2018.

Earlier today I visited "Out Of Print Books etc" in Caulfield and found that the store is closing down as the owner, Ken, is retiring. I've been visiting Ken's store for over a decade and have purchased many books from him. I'm very happy for Ken but it's still sad to lose another secondhand book store in Melbourne.

When I visited today the usual pile of Bond paperbacks had already been sold. However I uncovered a copy of Kate Westbrook's "The Moneypenny Diaries - Guardian Angel", published by John Murray in 2005. I already had this book in my collection but this copy was in too good condition to refuse.  Ken also allowed me to take a couple of photos of inside his store for posterity's sake.


To celebrate his retirement Ken has discounted all his stock by 50%. Congrats Ken and all the best for the future.

So overall some good and bad news, and by a strange coincidence I acquired two trade size "Moneypenny Diaries" paperbacks on the same day.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Piz Gloria Website Launched Six Years Ago Today

I've been very slack in my blog posts these last few months however today is the sixth anniversary of the launch of PizGloria.com so I thought I'd add a post for this special occasion.

During the last six years there have been 17,882 visitors to PizGloria.com which is really pleasing.  While the number of visitors has fallen from 3,380 in 2016 to 2,107 in 2017 I'm still very happy with the numbers.

As always I'd like to add a brief analysis of the stats:

- The average number of pages viewed per visit has risen from 6.84 in 2016 to 8.45 in 2017
- The overall number of page views fell from 39,385 in 2016 to 31,990 in 2017
- The average time spent on the site has risen from 3:01 minutes in 2016 to 3:17 minutes in 2017.  In 2012 the average was 4:43 minutes per visit/session but the site was new back then.

Here's the graphs:
So in summary I'd like to thank everyone who has taken time to visit both the Collecting Piz Gloria blog (sorry again for my slack-ness this past year) and the PizGloria.com website. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

Cheers Baz