bird reading logoHi gang! So today I am excited and a little overwhelmed to be celebrating Joyfully Jay’s 10-year anniversary! I started this blog with my very first post back on September 6th, 2011. It is funny to read back what I wrote then, as I really had no idea what to expect from the blog. I actually didn’t plan to make it a book blog at all. I figured I would talk about books, but I also assumed I would blog about lots of other things too. Hence the reason why I didn’t give the blog a name that had anything to do with books, an obvious mistake in hindsight.

Despite my initial plans, Joyfully Jay became a book blog almost immediately. My very first review was of Cover Me and Trust Me by L.A. Witt. It was just me at the time, so my first month I ran 18 posts. I had my first guest post in October, an interview with author Storm Grant. From there it was pretty much full steam ahead. Now we average well over 100 posts a month, with 8 reviewers, and a guest post every day Monday-Friday.

I never would have gotten this far without a lot of support. I had wonderful authors who were generous about sharing review copies of their books and stopping by for guest posts, even when I was a tiny blogger who couldn’t offer them much in the way of promotion. And of course, this blog would never have grown without the support from my incredible reviewing team. I brought my first reviewers in about six months after we opened and over the years I have folks come in and out. My current team has been with me for almost three years, and many of my folks have been with me far longer than that. They are what keeps the engine running here and they all dedicate a lot of time and effort to reading and writing reviews. So thank you to my amazing team, past and present!

And of course, thank you to all my readers! You guys are absolutely amazing and without you, I would be posting into the void. Thanks for your thoughts and comments, even when you disagree with us! Thanks for taking the time to read our reviews and share our posts. I would never have gotten to the point we are today without you.

I probably should have gotten around to doing something more momentous to celebrate, but with Challenge Month going on, not to mention the chaos of my life and everyone else’s, I just didn’t get around to pulling something together. But I didn’t want to let the day pass without taking some time to thank everyone for all you have done to make Joyfully Jay a success. I appreciate your time, dedication, and enthusiasm for this genre we all love. Happy Anniversary!

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