Grumpy Old Bookman to blog less often

[Posted on Tuesday, 13 February 2007]

Yesterday was overshadowed by the news that Grumpy Old Bookworm is stopping his Monday-Friday blogs.

As he explained : "I have decided, for a variety of reasons, to make some changes in the way the GOB blog operates.

In short, I have decided not to post material here on a regular, five-day-a-week basis. I am not going to retire from blogging completely, and will appear here from time to time. But posts will be irregular and less frequent than they used to be.

Everything that follows in this post is background to that decision -- background which may be of interest to some, especially anyone who is thinking of running a blog of their own."

I took his advice to subscribe to Bloglines [it's free] in order not to miss his future blogs.

In a comment on his semi-retirement, writer and publisher Susan Hill asked, "However long do you spend on blogging then Michael ? Mine takes me about 10-15 minutes a day MAX. I couldn`t decorate a room in that time, or write much of my book either."

I should have thought it obvious that GOB's long blogs, with their many links, took a lot more time to write than Ms Hill's usually short-ish blogs.

I started my own blog because so many people told me they missed the Bookworm on the Net website review column in The Bookseller. But I've always been a little uneasy about writing anything that didn't earn at least a little money.

When I looked in at GOB's place early this morning, there were 28 comments from people who love his blog and will miss him.

Coming tomorrow : If you're missing GOB and haven't yet discovered Jason Cowley, do so now.