My 2nd Blogiversary

A couple of days ago I quietly hit the two year mark for the blog. I wasn’t going to say anything and just let it slip by. I’m not really big on celebrating big events in my life, I don’t like a lot of attention on my birthday, or Father’s Day or things like that. But the more I thought about it the last couple of days the more I wanted to say SOMETHING about this milestone. And the thing I most wanted to say?

THANK YOU!

I want to say thank you to pretty much everyone in this sci-fi/fantasy book community. Thanks for reading the blog. Thanks for following me here and on Twitter. Thanks for all the conversations. Thanks for the new friendships. Thanks to the authors and publishers who send me books to review. It’s been a good second year and you’ve all been a part of it.

I have to admit there were many days during my first year of reviewing and blogging that I woke up in the morning and thought I should just give it up. I didn’t think I could keep up the pace with other bloggers who posted multiple times a week. I didn’t think I could write as well as so many of you do. I didn’t think people really cared what I thought about these books. I didn’t think anyone wanted to read long detailed reviews. I kept at it because I felt I owed it to some authors and publishers to review books they’d sent me and that I couldn’t close up shop before I did that. I decided once I got caught up I’d make a final decision to either call it quits or keep going.

So when the new year rolled around one of the decisions I made was to not put as much pressure on myself to post multiple times a week. Now I try to post something at least once a week with the understanding that I hope to average about three reviews a month. I also decided not to stress as much about my review format and just accept that my style was to write them long and with less emotion than all those other blogs I love and follow even if I wish I could write with more of the feels. Basically I decided to just accept the way I did things and allowed myself to be happy with it. Doing so took a lot of the pressure off and made this whole endeavor much more enjoyable.

But I still wouldn’t have continued on if it weren’t for all of you. I somehow hit 200 followers on the blog the other day, which isn’t much compared to some others out there, but it’s about 199 more than I expected. I’m nearing 1000 followers on Twitter which is just crazy. I think when I started I was only around 170. I’ve made some good friends on here (and yes I consider my online friends to be friends). We’ve had some fun conversations, raved about books together, joined read-alongs, and this year I was even invited to be a guest on a podcast a few times. I’ve also had the privilege to interact with some really great authors and publishers, which for any reader is a dream come true. I would have never thought even five years ago any of this would have been possible.

I mean it when I say I wouldn’t still be doing this if it weren’t for all of you. I often joke that book twitter is the best twitter. What I usually mean by that is sci-fi/fantasy book twitter is the best twitter. But in truth it’s this whole community whether on Twitter, or in the blogosphere, or YouTube, or Instagram, or any other place that this community exists and interacts. You’re the best, and you’ve made this a great year for me. So thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate all of you.

– Jason