I wonder if I could ask for your opinions on an idea.

As you know, I’ve been promoting a new multi-author blog, The Old Books Blog. I was prompted to start this because of something that happened a few weeks ago on Gab. Yes. I know. But the trick to Gab is finding well-managed groups whose members stay on topic and contribute to a constructive conversation. Old Books was once such group. I found it abandoned about two years ago. I started it back up, was joined within days by Marcia (you can image that led to some confusion), and with a few others we built the group from 8 members to 400+. We’d even started an Old Books Book Club which “met” monthly. The incident at Gab directly involved the owners of the platform, Andrew Torba and his wife Emily. No need to hash it out, but within one morning, I saw just how devious and underhanded they are. So I no longer wanted anything to do with Gab. (I deleted my account today.)

The sticky point, though, was the Old Books group. What to do? Several of the regular posters in private conversations had ideas, and for a number of reasons we settled on The Old Books Blog. I started three weeks ago. There are seven other authors, four of whom have started to post there. So we’re off and running! Except that starting a new blog–on a topic that is somewhat…niche-y–is like setting sail into the never-ending darkest night.

That’s where you come in!

I had the idea of doing some cross-posting, here and there. Years ago I took an online class on “Writing American Food.” It’s no longer available, but I have my notebook. Though it focuses on American food, cookbooks, and restaurant critiques, it had a great historical component tracing the development of cookbooks over time.

Would posts about this be of any interest to y’all? That is, if I posted a couple of recipes from Clementine Paddleford, and announced that there was a companion piece up at The Old Books Blog about how her cookbook, How America Eats, changed the way food writers and their critics approached American cooking, would you click over to read that?

Would those who have food-related blogs link to those sorts of posts?

Thanks for your input.