Blog updates

I've got a long way behind on updating the BHE blog with news after contracting a virusy, wormy, trojany type thing. I cured that only to get plagued with the blue screen of death every time I tried to do anything more complicated than play minesweeper.

Luckily, and crossed fingers, I think I'm back in working order again and so I'll start getting up to date with links to anything interesting concerning BHWs along with all the latest releases.

Black Horse Westerns on Facebook

If you're a fan of BHWs and would like to chat with other fans along with many BHW writers, you can join the BHW Discussion Group. It's an email listing in which members can contribute to discussions, raise questions, and make friends in a supportive and fun environment. The group is spam free and moderated.

Just join groups.yahoo.com then go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blackhorsewesterns/ or send an email to blackhorsewesterns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

But now, if you prefer to use Facebook, you can join the BHW group at

http://www.facebook.com/groups/37294272460/10150678398962461.

State of the Blog

Blogger recently updated their system with improved statistics. So here's some facts about the visitors to this blog:

Over the last year monthly visitors have grown steadily :

May: 655
Jun: 666
Jul: 678
Aug: 725
Sep: 684
Oct: 806
Nov: 1104
Dec: 1076
Jan: 1192
Feb: 1164
Mar: 1109
Apr: 1253

These people come from:

1. US (48%)
2. UK (26%)
3. Germany (6%)
4. Australia (5%)
5. Russia (5%)
Followed by France, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and South Korea

The most popular types of item are :

1. Articles - Ride the Trail to Success by Jack Edwardes
2. Reviews - Gunsmoke over New Mexico by Dale Graham
3. Interviews - Derek Rutherford
4. Bestsellers on Amazon.
5. E-BHWs published that month
6. Black Horse Westerns published that month
7. Guest blogger - Jack Giles's granddaughter
8. Dales westerns published that month
9. Linford westerns published that month

Traffic that comes from search engines gets here by people tapping in the following words :

1. Title (yes, the five letters title. Don’t get that)
2. black horse westerns
3. black horse express
4. blackhorseexpress.blogspot.com
5. a black horse western
6. arizona showdown
7. a dorman leishman
8. g.f. unger
9. peter taylor
10. range war
11. skeletal squirrel (a well-covered area on the blog. In fact I know of no other blog that covers it better)
12. 50's comics
13. a western fiction book about a man called strange
14. conestoga boots
15. ghost horse rider
16. joanne lanigan
17. steve ritchie
18. the desperadoes
19. Dead man riding horse
20. Owls (?)

I guess that these statistics tell me that in future I'll have to put more effort into keeping the dead squirrel and owl fanbase happy!

Mission Statement

Around ten years ago when I first logged on to the Internet and searched for Black Horse Westerns there was next to no information available. Now all that has changed. There are on-line magazines, blogs, personal websites, myspace pages, facebook groups, twitters... all to varying degrees containing information on BHWs. Keeping track of all the places to look for new material is becoming a difficult task and so that is where the Black Horse Express Blog aims to help.

This blog will keep readers updated on all the new Black Horse related material as it becomes available. It may from time to time provide new material, but in the main it will be a place for readers to visit to find out what the latest Black Horse news is without having to trawl through dozens of different sites. The site will update only on Black Horse news and so information on western fiction generally will not appear here.

The intention is to create a resource that promotes all Black Horse Western novels and authors equally. So over the next few weeks I will amend the look of this blog to create a full list of all resources and links. I admit that I am unsure if this resource will turn out to be a useful one as I have started this blog simply because I have found it difficult to keep track of all the places where information is becoming available. Accordingly I will review how useful it has become in, say, six months, but it is hoped that this blog will help bring together the on-line Black Horse community.

Ian Parnham