Editor's blog waking up

Hello there. Good morning.

As if to test me, this is the second draft from scratch, as an error lost me the whole blog I’d written.

As I sit here on a fairly unremarkable Saturday, the dog is sleeping and the birds are tweeting, and I’m sat at a different desk, in a different place, on a different keyboard to a different computer writing this (again).

Words & Matter as a website is eight years old. On Facebook, it’s been around for around 10 years. In that time, I’m aware I’ve not posted much as the editor and only writer on the site, and it has just sort of existed, without doing much, in a dusty, but fondly recovered corner of the Internet.

This week that corner is sort of less dusty.

Not that this is a post to say ‘we’re back!’ although we sort of are a little. And it isn’t a post to say ‘we’ve got big plans’ because I currently don’t. But. But.

Words & Matter was created because I love books, and at a time I was particularly interested in finding out about books - being unemployed, and wanting to find solace in the world of books at that time - I couldn’t do so without finding pretentious articles and paywalls blocking my way.

This site was my way of getting around that, for me and for anyone else who just loved and was interested in books as a whole, as an ecosystem, as a subject of affection, as well as a gateway to wonderful experiences. I wanted to go out there and find the most interesting book news and share it. And I still want to do that ultimately.

Because although the site has been dormant, I’ve kept up the provider payments, I’ve kept up the domain renewals. I do care…about this place and books.

The world of books has changed ofcourse, book journalism has changed and wow the world has changed too in 8-10 years. But I still love books, and so I’m just going to do what we can each do and keep trying. Try to post at least once a day, try to be active on social media, and try to help anyone reading this enjoy books that bit more.

And people are reading still, according to the analytics. A handful of readers this week have been on site, and thank you to those for doing so.

Again, I’m not promising the world for W&M, but I am promising I will try. Because of my own love of books, the site being here, and because of anyone who has ever read this site.

Cheers, and all the very best!

~Kevin