Hello there! I’m Corey Helton, founder of Youtini and it’s my pleasure to address you on this marvelous May 4th of 2019.

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY AND MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!

Today is a special day for me. It marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life as in just a few hours, I will walk across a stage a receive a doctorate of medicine and receive the formal title of M.D. at the end of my name. Medical school has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life and I am proud to have accomplished it. I saw on my Facebook feed this morning that I received my acceptance to medical school on May 4th in 2015.

What a wonderful full circle to make. It was the will of the Force.

Youtini is such an incredible part of my life now. I started this company with the desire to share my love of the Expanded Universe with Star Wars fans across the globe. And we’ve touched thousands of lives both through our book subscriptions which were discontinued earlier this year and now through this incredible community that we’ve built together.

I wanted to offer a glimpse into the future and discuss where we are in 2019 and where we are going next.

“Always in motion the future is.”

The website, the discord, and the podcast.

Youtini.com is completely new and it’s the pinnacle of everything that we do. We now aim to be your one stop shop for everything in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

At the core of our site, you’ll find our book collections and book profiles. When I first started Youtini, I wanted to create something that made it easier for people to read, access, and engage with Star Wars books, and that’s exactly what our new collections do.

You pick the topic, we’ll tell you the books.

In the mood for some books about the Sith? We’ve got you covered.

Just watched Solo for the tenth time? Here’s where to go next.

Feeling the festive for the 20th anniversary of The Phantom Menace? You get the idea.

Throughout this next year, we’ll be cultivating these book collections to make the Star Wars reading experience easier and more fun than ever before.

But what good would all of these collections be without the information about the books, themselves? That’s where our book profiles come in. Our amazing team has been working night and day to put together unique book profiles for every book Star Wars ever produced. Now, whenever you’re thinking about what to read next, you can stop by Youtini and get a publisher’s summary, our personal comments, our staff score, and you can even order the book through Amazon right on the page. I am so beyond proud of the work our team has done putting these together, and we’re going further and further every day.

To round out our new content, I have to mention our updated blog. In addition to long form reviews of all new Canon releases (check out our Queen’s Shadow and Master & Apprentice reviews if you haven’t yet!), we are dedicating ourselves to becoming the premiere site for all the news in the Expanded Universe. If something has happened in the Star Wars world related to the EU, we want you to be able to click right over to Youtini to hear our thoughts. There has never been a more exciting time to be a fan of the EU, and you better believe we’ll be writing all about it.

Finally, we are gearing up to add comics and graphic novels to the site where they will show up in book profiles, timelines, and the Bookshelf.

Speaking of the Bookshelf, Version 3.0 is nearly complete. It has an all new design and bigger and better functionality is coming soon.

Most of all, 2019 has also been crucially important in expanding our community.

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In addition to our vibrant Facebook group, The Youtini Cantina, we created a Discord channel where you can chat with other Youtini fans as well as our entire staff about all things EU. Here’s an excerpt from our official announcement.

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Since the launch of Youtini, there has been one overarching characteristic that serves as the foundation for everything that we do: Community. From the raucous round table discussions to the everyday flow of conversation in the Youtini Cantina Facebook group, community is what drives us each and every day.

However, the behind-the-scenes conversations among the Youtini staff in our company Slack teams have always had a more personal flair - more family like, even. Now we want to welcome each every one of you to our family in a passionate public community.

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a brand new Youtini Discord server, a dedicated chat room to discuss all things Star Wars and the Expanded Universe with other members of the Youtini community, staff included!

The last week has also introduced a brand new branch of Youtini: The Living Force podcast. Check out this excerpt from Charles’s full write up below:

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The Living Force Podcast was a natural byproduct of the amazing community that has grown around Youtini since its launch, and serves to give a voice and platform to that community.

Each week, several members of the Youtini staff will get together to talk about the latest Youtini developments from the website as well as books, comics, and other big news from a galaxy far, far away. While the main focus of discussion will be on the Expanded Universe, it will even more importantly focus on positivity.

In a time when there has been a very vocal, negative subset of the Star Wars fandom that was allowed to drive the narrative of our favorite saga, we are seeking to take control back by saving what we love, not destroying what we hate. We are seeking to lift up the fandom and inject it with the same passion and positivity for which the fandom has been well-known since its humble beginnings.

Clearly, 2019 has been a year of rebirth and ridiculous excitement over at Youtini, and we’re just getting started. We want to bring along our entire community on this ride, and to that end, we have a new way to track everything that we are working on. The Youtini Roadmap has all of our next projects. Check it out HERE.

It’s been an incredible honor to serve the Star Wars fan community and I look forward to what the years ahead will offer. Thank you for joining us and as always, May the Force be with you.