Blog Anniversary + 800 Followers + Giveaway + Semi-Hiatus Announcement

This is probably going to be a long post but oh well, stick to it because I’ll end with a giveaway. I have literally been saying I wanted to do a giveaway when I reached 500 followers?? But then I never did??? But today is the day!

First the least exciting thing of all (don’t go scrolling down yet, this is important!), I will be on vacation starting from today until probably Monday, August 14th. This means that I will be absent for almost an entire month. I have a lot of posts scheduled (mainly tags but also newbie bloggers and reviews) so you won’t miss me too much I hope, but I will probably have problems answering all messages, comments, emails etc. So don’t despair when I don’t answer within a few days. It could take me a while. Sadly, this also means I won’t be able to keep up with all of your wonderful posts.

Now onto the fun part of this post!

A Brief History of my Blog (yes that was a reference and yes I still haven’t finished the book and yes I’m embarrassed about it)

On this day, a year ago, I opened wordpress and made a blog. I called it Imaginary Places On Paper, which I still think is a fun name for a blog but it was soooo long. A few months later (I don’t recall when it was) I changed the name officially to Lost In A Story (because honestly, I’m always lost in a story). I kept the url because, well, the lostinastory.wordpress.com url was already taken *sad face*. In the beginning blogging was incredibly hard, probably because I didn’t do “commenting” and “talking to actual people”. I was like the shyest blogger ever, I never talked to people because what if they think I’m weird??? Anyway, I learned that that was not a good attitude over the months. Only in October or November, my stats started going up and blogging life really took over my real life. Can you imagine, I wrote blog posts each day, sometimes even multiple ones!? I don’t know how I did that to be honest, but I probably had no life besides blogging.

Then awesome things started happening, I started this project called Short Story Society, I participated in projects, I started Down The TBR Hole (p.s. it’s still a secret (kind of) but it’s coming back to my blog shhh don’t tell), I started writing, I started The Bad Book Project, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo, I participated in The Typewriter Project and so many wonderful things happened!! I also reviewed many books, got e-ARCs and even got my first real physical ARC sent to me for review. I won giveaways and even held one myself. I met new blogger friends and talked excessively online on twitter about random stuff, I even shared some super personal things on here and learned a lot about myself. I can honestly not imagine a life without my blog anymore.

Well, that wasn’t a brief history but oh well, A Brief History of Time wasn’t as short as the title suggested either haha.

A Huge Thank You

To all of my currently EIGHT HUNDRED followers: THANK YOU. To anyone who ever commented, sent me their love or liked my posts, THANK YOU. Even if you never comment and are shy like I was in the beginning, you are important to me (and come say hi! I won’t bite 🙂 ) And to all my blogging buddies, and those who I have grown to call my friends, I love you and thank you so much for going on this journey for me. It means the world. *Journey with Don’t Stop Believin’ starts playing*

A quick note, if you haven’t noticed it yet, my blog got a makeover and I’m in love with it. So if you haven’t done it already, go out of the wordpress reader and head over to my new URL lostinastory.blog!

Giveaway

As an extra thank you, I am hosting a giveaway! It will run from now until Sunday August 13th, and that is a long time because of my semi-hiatus. It is an international giveaway and everyone can enter (but if you’re younger than 18(?), make sure to have a parent’s permission).

You can choose from ANY DIVERSE BOOK on book depository (or wordery but I never ordered from wordery before) up to 15 euros (which is about 15 USD). Just to give you an idea of what you can choose from (these are some of my favourite diverse books):

Just to be clear, the book of your choice can also be a pre-order, as long as it’s below the given price limit. The only further limitation is that it has to be diverse (which honestly isn’t that hard I think, but if you need more recommendations, I am sure I can give you plenty!).

But that was not all! I will be sending a small package to the winner with bookmarks, stickers and anything else that is small and I can find! It’s a bit of a surprise what it is you’ll get (mainly because I am not even sure yet), but I promise you it will be fun!

Enter the giveaway here!

Have you entered my giveaway? If you’re following, I’m curious, how did you find my blog? Why did you follow? What are your favourite diverse books? Which book would you love to win?

Support me, Buy Me a Coffee