5 years.
That’s a long time.
I guess, when you’re 39 like me, it’s not really that long of a time. But, still, it’s about 12% of my lifetime.
It’s also the amount of time this blog has existed. Sunday is the actual 5 year anniversary of 101 Books, but I don’t post on Sundays so…
The blog started on August 30, 2010 while I was sitting in a beach house overlooking the Atlantic on a Labor Day vacation. I popped open my laptop, went to wordpress.com, and cranked out my first post. This one.
At the time, my first son was just a few months old. He started pre-K last week. In between then and now, he helped me create the most popular post in the history of this blog—a post that appeared on Huff Post, Buzzfeed, and all over the internet. The kid’s a legend, and he doesn’t even know it.
My wife and I have also had a second son since then. He turns 2 next month, and my guess is he will have an equally creative and hilarious post about book covers on my blog within the next year.
Through all of the personal and professional growth during the last five years, through the ups and downs of life, I’ve been pecking away at 101 Books almost every day. And many of you guys have been there through it all.
101 Books is closing in on 50,000 subscribers. Many of you have read most, if not all, of the 1,128 blog posts. The blog has received over 26,000 comments, and only 25,900 of them were mine! Sometime in the next month or so, we’ll break 2 million page views.
That’s nuts, friends.
And, seriously, none of it would have happened without you. There’s no way this blog would have made it 5 years without your support. I don’t think the momentum of just reading the books and writing about them would have carried me very far. I’m not rolling in the dough because of 101 Books either. The interaction and the community here is what has kept me going on days when I wasn’t feeling very creative and, dare I say, motivated.
Most of you are blog “stalkers,” and that’s cool. Some of you participate in the comments, and that’s great. But all of you are awesome. So thanks.
After 5 years, we’ve conquered 82 novels. We’ve got 19 more to go to complete the list. That should happen within the next two years. My pace has definitely slowed since the beginning of the blog, but we’re going to finish this thing. Stay tuned…to celebrate, I think I might give away a few books next week.
Thanks again guys for 5 awesome years!
