Last night I watched the newest episode of House, after which I find out that the next NEW episode is not airing until JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH! After American Idol. Which I fear means that we’re going to get WEEKS of bad something, including bad American Idol auditions, when we could be getting GOOD HOUSE! Argh!
The other day at The Writers Path, Vikk Simmons asked, “Why blog?” When authors find out I do blog and have been doing so for a very long time and do so as often as I do, I get the same question. I also get comments such as, “Oh, I’d never have time for that,” or “I’m not the blogging type,” etc. Yet I wonder if the authors who write off the medium so quickly realize what a HUGE promotional tool a blog can be.
Think about it this way. Do you realize that the national nightly news shows (as well as news magazines and even daily papers) are now being referred to as “old media” because bloggers can get information that’s accurate, factual, and timely in ways that journalists can’t? Old media. Think about it. Dan Rather, Brian Williams, and Peter Jennings are old media. My husband has been reading stories on the tsunamis that will never make it into the newspaper. He also reads military blogs and many by Iraqi bloggers. None of what he’s getting from the source ends up in prime time.
What does that mean for authors who blog? The possibilities are truly endless. As Vikk says, Blogs are tools. They are what you make of them. In fact, that’s probably what is so exciting about blogs. They’re a new frontier waiting for the most intrepid of writerly souls to take that first step and make the most of what they find.
She goes on to give links to two articles addressing the usefulness of blogging, summarizing with, I’m not sure why but writers often have a hard time fitting what they do–write–and what they produce–books (short stories, articles, features, etc.)–into a business model. I admit it calls for some mental transformation but in today’s publishing world, the writer who is able to switch hats and move from the more artistic model to the business model is better equipped to handle the transformation their work undergoes from a simple manuscript to a published product.
Thing is, there are authors who participate on message boards, who have Yahoo Groups lists specifically tailored to their fans, who give chats, etc., yet think blogging is a waste of time. I’m quite sure they never stop to think how much publicity they can accomplish, how much broader of an audience they can reach . . . unless that’s not their promotional goal. Unless they’re happy with what they are doing. Obviously, I don’t buy for one minute the issue of not having time, or blogging being a waste of time. I usually blog daily and it takes less time usually than all the email I handle! (Okay, I fought with the stupid Bravenet poll for probably 30 minutes this morning, grr, but that was an anomaly!)
I guess what I’m saying is, don’t be OLD in your view of blogging! If you’ve got something to say, or a new audience to woo, and would prefer not to irritate readers by filling their mailboxes with newsletters *ggg* (especially ones that are obviously the result of harvested email addys, grrrr), give it a try! I recently had a reader tell me that she visits my blog at least twice a day. AND she even reads my books, LOL! Waste of time? I don’t think so!
