Today The Story turns a year old. A year ago, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It’s been a whirlwind and I’ve loved almost every minute of it. Sure, there are a few things I would have done differently but I think everything has turned out quite nicely.
I want to send out a HUGE thank you to all the visitors of The Story. I really appreciate it. (To thank all you visitors I’m having a contest, you can find the info here.) I’d also like to thank all the authors, publishers and publicists that I’ve been in contact with. I’m truly grateful that you’ve all taken a chance with me! A special thanks goes out to S over at Henry Holt! Thank you to all the authors that stopped by for Author Tales and took time out of your busy writing schedules to answer some interview questions or for composing a guest post! Thanks to those authors that sent me a part of themselves, I mean your novel, for review.
I thought I’d use this post to reminisce the coming and goings of the past year. Here’s a time line highlighting some of the events that made this year one to remember!
Dec. 15, 2007: First Review: Prey by Lurlene McDaniel. It was my first ARC and I had gotten it from Random Buzzers. If you want to check out the post, you can do that, here. I didn’t do such a bad job, even though I had no idea what exactly it was I was doing.
Dec. 17, 2007: My first comment. I was so ecstatic when I actually got a comment! It was left by A Page Turner Book Reviews, whom sadly I don’t believe reviews anymore. But thank you for making my day.
January 2008: The first author to send me a book was Maria Snyder. She sent me a copy of Poison Study and I have to say I’m a big fan of the series to this day. Thanks Maria!
January 2008: The first contest I won was at an author chat with Tina Ferraro! I won a copy of How to Hook a Hottie, which is a very cute book, you can check out my review here. I had to answer a question, which happened to be... “What song does Tina currently have on her MySpace page?” The answer was Love is a Battlefield. Did I mention how cool Tina is. Luckily for me I have good luck when it comes to winning her books, because I also won an ARC of her upcoming novel The ABC’s of Kissing Boys, it’s GOOD!
February 23, 2008. My first contest. I gave away the complete Study Series by Maria Snyder. I had 46 entries! It was the neatest thing ever.
March 16, 2008: My first Young Adult author interviewee was Cassandra Clare! I don’t think I did too bad for my first interview. Cassandra was very nice! I love her books. Can’t wait for City of Glass!
March 18, 2008: I was contacted by my first YA author for a review. Which happened to be none other than Jennifer Banash author of The Elite. I ended up loving her debut novel, you can see the review, here.
April 14, 2008: I reached my 100th post.
April 23, 2008: Author Tales was born (Which initially was called Author Talk Thursdays... but was later changed to Author Tales.) My first ever Author Tales author was the hilarious Alexa Young. Thank you Alexa for helping a sister out, I won’t forget it!
April 27, 2008: I met my first author, in the flesh. Richelle Mead. It was fantastic. She is an extraordinary author and person!
July 17, 2008: My biggest contest. (The Twilight Contest) I had 103 comment entries on this contest, not to mention the vast array of email entries that I received. It was insane. I still get contest entries for the contest to this day even though I finally went back and edited the page to note the contest was over!
August 15, 2008: The first ever Books to Pine for Post. This one was such a hit, it found a permanent home at The Story.
August 31, 2008: The YA Connection was born. Need I say more.
September 5, 2008: I was nominated for the Book Blogger Appreciation Week, “Best YA Lit. Blog” I was VERY surprised and FLATTERED at that one. And even though I didn’t win, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I think about just being nominated.
November 11, 2008: In My Mailbox was born!
November 24, 2008: I had the most visitors to my blog this day than I’ve ever had. I had 418 visitors. I had 1,015 page views! What was the post that day: Books to Pine for Take Seven!
December 7, 2008: The Story reached 100 followers!
I hope to have many more events to highlights in the years to come! Thank you again to everyone!
Random Facts:
My most popular post to this day is my review of The Vampire Diaries : The Awakening and The Struggle by L.J. Smith. It’s been viewed over 400 times since it’s post date on March 5, 2008.
The feature with the most page views is the In My Mailbox posts. (And this is my most recent feature, how weird is that?)
Review X is my biggest reviewer referral site. Thanks Steph!
I’ve had visitors from 93 countries/territories. Top ten: United States. Canada. United Kingdom, Philippines, Australia, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, and Singapore.
As of yesterday I’ve had approx. 47,487 visitors and 81,137 page views. That's unbelievable!
Again I just want to THANK everyone! I love the book blogging community! I've met and made some wonderful friends. I only hope that the next year will be even better. Thank you, Chelsea, especially... (I did get your email... I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you, I swear I will!) You've always been there for me! I want you to know I really appreciate it! You are a force! Thank you J for being a friend I never knew I needed! I appreciate you're insight on my reviews and paranoia! Here's to an extraordinary year!