Celebrating Hitting 50,000 Views Per Month and the Annual Shameless Xmas Plug for My Books

Normally around this time of year I’m – to use a Scottish expression – “bumming my load”, that is, boasting (there’s no other word for it if I’m being honest) about all the books I’ve written which IMHO you should be putting on your Xmas list.

But this time it’s different – because I’m “bumming your load.”

This time I’m celebrating your input into my humble Blog.

Last month I hit 50,000 views and this month I’ve already passed that figure.

So these kind of stats are phenomenal and though I contribute by doing the writing the bigger part in this is down to you, the reader, who has remained with me constantly and clearly informed others about the Blog.

When I first started the Blog I had no idea I’d still be writing it five years later. In the early days I was lucky if I could attract 200 views a month. Gradually, my figures crept up, but still nothing really to boast about. Every year I seemed to attract more views. By May this year I was at 10,000 views a month.

And then the Blog just exploded.

To go from 10,000 a month to 50,000 a month in just six months is beyond my comprehension. At this rate I’ll be easily surpassing half a million a year.

And this is all without the help of social media. I don’t post on Instagram, X or Facebook. I’m not on Rotten Tomatoes or any other critic-friendly or aggregate site.

The only place you can find my Blog is where you’re supposed to find it – on WordPress.

My Xmas has come early so many thanks to you all.

Now back to the shameless stuff. My latest book King of the Action Thriller – Films from the Mind of Alistair MacLean has been a long time coming but now it’s at the final stages of editing and is due out in February 2026. MacLean’s imagination, you might recall, was responsible for, among others, The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Breakheart Pass, Bear Island, Ice Station Zebra, Fear Is the Key and Puppet on a Chain.

I even found a long-lost screenplay he wrote that was never made. Eighteen of his books found their way onto the big and small screen.

You can order King of the Action Thriller it direct from the publisher McFarland or on Amazon and other sites and bookshops.

If you fancy going further into films of the 1960s I can recommend some other books to you. Admittedly, these are all books I’ve written but I did say this was a shameless plug.

Here are some of the titles:

The Making of The Magnificent Seven – Behind the Scenes of the Pivotal Western;

The Making of The Guns of Navarone;

The Making of Lawrence of Arabia;

The Gunslingers of ’69 – Western Movies’ Greatest Year;

and The Magnificent ‘60s – The 100 Most Popular Films of a Revolutionary Decade.

If you’re interested in more about the actual business of the movies you could dip into my books about reissues/re-releases and how Hollywood came to release new movies everywhere all at once. Check out my 250,000-word tome Coming Back to a Theater Near You, A History of  Hollywood Reissue 1914-2014 and In Theaters Everywhere, A History of the Hollywood Wide Release 1913-2017.

I’m in the process of making available in printed form the reviews from the Blogs. I originally published these under the title 1960s Movies Redux but I’ve revamped these to now include illustrations and they’ll be available shortly in paperback and Kindle format under the title 1960s Movies Vol 1 (then Vol 2, Vol 3 etc).

Happy reading and Happy Xmas.

Thanks once again to all my readers.