Poetry Books YA celebrated its 10th anniversary this year!
It’s been 10 years since I decided to start this book blog. Walk through memory lane with me.
When I first started this blog, it was under a different name: Poems and Book Reviews of a Young Artist. I didn’t think anything of it, other than to write about the two things I loved doing, book reviews and poetry. At first, I didn’t have any special format or strategy as to how my blog posts would do. I was 21 years old and I’d had some experience writing in college and high school, but nothing like blogging. Blogging was an otherworldly concept I didn’t know much about.
But when I started, I didn’t stop.
I wrote about every book I read, participated in a lot of book challenges, got to know and network with a lot of book bloggers, and even became a book tour host for PR companies. From 2014 to 2018, book blogging became my life!
Things started to slow down around 2018 to 2019. I went on hiatus to figure some things out. I felt like I didn’t know what my identity with book blogging was. because I was running out of topics to write about, I felt very out of place. So I thought a name change would make it easier to PoetryBooksYA. Short, sweet and to the point! But I still wasn’t happy.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, I’d really lost my mojo. I felt like my time was up with blogging; I didn’t have the drive for it anymore. I felt like I wasn’t needed in the blogging world anymore. And I definitely wasn’t getting paid. Not that that mattered much, since most of my writing experience came from volunteer work and internships. But I would have liked to be paid for my work. So I launched a Patreon page around 2022, just to get some traction going. I didn’t expect to be building a whole community of people who love writing and storytelling as much as I do. I didn’t expect to make great friends and share my life with others online. That could only happen with fandoms, but the book community is just as strong online. And I’m so grateful for it.
What’s Next?
Now that I’m in the middle of my summer vacation from grad school, I’ve been busy writing different projects, like my second poetry book, the Rutgers Book Blog “Books We Read”, and a family cookbook! I sometimes feel like I’m stretching myself too thin with all of these projects, but then I figure, why not? Now is the time I should be the busiest with writing because I have a lot of time.
I just wanted to come on here to say thank you! Thank you for the past 10 years of this little blog. Thank you for still rocking with me after all this time. I really do appreciate every comment, Like, Follow and Subscription. The next 10 years that will surely blow your mind.
Here’s to the next 10 years!!
Comment below: What has been your favorite moment from my book blog?
My debut poetry novel collection Reality Check is available now! Buy on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Shout-Out to my Patreon Members:
- Wesley Lindsey
- Cave Marie
- IRIDYSCENZIA
Visit https://www.patreon.com/poetrybooksya for more exclusive, creative writing and poetry content! Check out my introductory post on Patreon here. There are a lot of fun posts on there you will enjoy.
Some posts include:
- Earn a free signed copy of my debut poetry book, Reality Check
- View Early Access blog posts before they go on the main website
- I’ll write a poem about you!
- Patreon’s Choice: Suggest topics for me to write about on the blog
Don’t want to support monthly? Check out my Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/poetrybooksya
Thanks for reading,
