Friday, August 26, 2011

A Difficult Decision...

...but one I have decided to make.

I started A Novel Challenge way back in April 2007 - shortly after I discovered the wonderful world of book blogs and reading challenges. I wanted to give readers one place to find all the reading challenges in the blog-o-sphere. Eventually, I was to add not only reading challenges, but reading events to the blog. Never did I imagine how this blog would grow and how popular it would become (there are currently 1200 posts here). The book blogging world has proven to be a rich community for creativity! And for that, I am immensely grateful to those readers who, over the years, have been faithful visitors to A Novel Challenge.

In January 2009, I invited Teddy of So Many Precious Books, So Little Time to come on board and help me with the administration of the blog. Her enthusiasm and assistance has been incredibly appreciated. Without Teddy, this announcement would have come much sooner.

After more than four years, I have decided to let A Novel Challenge go. Over the last two years, I have been involved less and less in reading challenges, and found myself wanting to spend more time focused on my primary blog, Caribousmom, rather than dividing my time between specialized blogs, like this one. I have found there are just not enough hours in the day, and sometimes tough decisions need to be made to restore sanity! Teddy has also found herself very busy with her new virtual book tour company. I had thought to simply ask someone to take over the blog - but, I really do not want to continue to be connected to it ... I would rather make a clean break.

There are many challenges which run through the end of December - so I will be keeping A Novel Challenge blog up through that time. Content will be deleted on January 1st, 2012. I will not be adding any new challenges or events from today onward.

If anyone would like to continue providing links to reading challenges and events on a different site, please consider teaming up. You are more than welcome to leave comments here and hopefully connect with other readers who may be interested in continuing this idea. Trust me, one person doing it all is really not possible! If another site is developed - I will be happy to announce it here and give people a link to it. In fact, I would consider deleting the content here, but keeping one post which would redirect people to the new site through June 2012. I am very congnizant of the fact that this blog is a community service...and I certainly would support any efforts to continue that service elsewhere.

Once again - many thanks to all of you who have encouraged me from the beginning and who have continued to support A Novel Challenge with your patronage.