Does a website/blogging help get your name out there?

I was a blogger long before I started working on my novel - I have had my personal blog/site since May 07. When I started writing seriously I thought it might be a good idea to keep a blog about it (since I did have a spare domain name I wasn't using). I enjoyed blogging, and it might help bring me attention.

While sadly no publisher/agent has discovered my talent D: the word does seem to be getting out. I've had dozens of comments made by visitors along the lines of "you'd better get published so I can buy this book!" - these people have only read the first little bit of chapter one I have up on there. While it obviously hasn't led to a deal, it had led to my name getting out there and mentioned in blogs of my target audience - young adults. If I do end up with an agent and deal that's already a group of people (small, but at least a group) of people who already know of me, know a little of the book and more importantly (IMHO) feel a connection with me. They're hopefully going to read the book and post about it on their blogs, doing some legwork so I don't have to.

That's my long-winded, rambling version of: yes, I think it helps, even in the most minor of ways.



You can have a website with a blog, by the way - it's not a case of one or the other. If you do have a blog as part of your website it allows for contact and interactivity, which is something that a lot of young people these days like out of websites. And authors - they're no longer this example of anonymous celebrity.

I've been wondering about starting a blog myself, and was weighing the pros and cons, and doing the research and whatnot. Here's what I learned and what conclusions I came to:

A blog will get your name out there, but only if people come to your blog. So you have to advertise and network and most importantly, offer content people actually want to read. For example, my best friend recently started a blog about language and world building, and since she's a linguistic anthropologist who writes SFF, she has a lots of good stuff to say that will interest blog readers. She's slowly building a readership, and when she sells her fist novel, she'll have folks who know her and are likely to go buy it. But it's a slow journey and it does take work.

I, on the other hand, write YA fantasy and have nothing to offer potential YA readers in a blog. I can blog about writing, but really, who would care? So I decided that starting a blog now would be pointless, as no one would bother to read it.

However, blogs are fantastic ways to connect with your readers once you have readers. My book comes out October 2009, so I'll probably revisit the blog idea after that. For YA authors it's even more important, as our readers are very tech savvy and used to connectiong with people online. So blogs, myspace, facebooks etc are all good things. When you do them is based entirely on what you can offer potential readers.

Websites are great and a must. People will naturally Google you, and having something they can find that promotes your work is a good thing. I've heard agents say if a website address is provided, they'll sometimes take a peek if the query sounds interesting. It isn't something likely to drive agents/editors to your site, but it's good to have your name out there, and you'll need one eventually if you get published. BUt it's highly unlikey that having a website will get you noticed, and thus published.

You want a good, professional-looking website or there's no point. You want to show you're a professional writer, even if you haven't yet sold anything. You don't want you site to look like you do this as a hobby.

So, the opinion from a recently sold YA author: website - yes, blog - no. The PR folks I've been speaking with advise getting the website up quickly, as sales for a book start way before it even hits the shelves. My goal is to have the site up and running by Jan 1. The blog I won't worry about until I have something people actually want to read about on a daily basis.

And I had neither a website nor a blog when I got my agent and sold my book. You don't need them to get published, all you need is a really great book

I agree with every word of Danthia's post. It should be a model for anyone considering to start a blog. I will only add that with nonfiction (that's what I write) I believe that blogs are most effective when they are primarily theme oriented, with author info secondary. I believe net surfers are more likely to search for a topic than the name of an unknown author. Even with fiction,wherever possible, this concept may hold true. Perhaps the only exceptions would be the release of a new book or if the author has some celebrity status.

I was watching CSpan yesterday and heard a book review editor from The Washington Post say that there are some 50 MILLION blogs on the web! I assume that includes all types of blogs, not only those related to books.

The truth is that you'd be surprised who you will meet on Blogs/Social Networks. Yes, it can make a difference.

Here are a few thoughts. Treat everyone as kind as possible. Be interesting and friendly. Nobody likes to visit dead blogs where the last post was a year ago.

Go out of your way to make friends and keep making friends, without crossing the line of being annoying.

Whatever you post can work as much for you as against you. A friend used to say if we kept our mouths shut someone might think we're smart. If we open them we may prove them wrong.

Make your site beautiful, interesting, asthetically like someplace people will want to visit often. However, if you have too many graphics your Myspace will hang up, and people may never visit or stop visiting because it takes too long to download.

I've actually been told by agents that I've submitted to that I should start a website, and have a blog. I've also heard it from some of the conventions I've attended. Agents claim that it is necessary nowadays to have a website because it shows that you are at least able to promote yourself. I also have to add that when I set up my own website (a little more than a month ago actually) I tried my best to do all the things that Nateskate said. I get a bunch of hits every day on the site, but only a few comments. Thus far, no bites from any agents yet.

You should definitely have a web site, something that lists your work and provides a means for interested editors, agents, publishers, or readers to get in touch with you.

THe blog ... it can help. But I also think people sometimes look at Boing-Boing or John Scalzi's Whatever and the other big blogs and get overly high expectations. It takes a long time to bulid readership, and most of us are not going to get the kind of readers the big blogs do. (In part because those blogs started 10 years ago, back when there was little competition.)

But if it's something you enjoy, then go for it.

Even if you're not yet in a position where you need a blog, it may be a good plan to start one so you can "practice", as it were, and get a feel for what your strengths are in blog-writing. Someone mentioned themes, and they're quite right; most of the popular blogs nowadays are people who know enough about Something (or several Somethings) to write long, intelligent, and easily accessible essays on that Something. Writing good blog entries is as much of a skill as writing fiction, so if it's something you think you'll want to use as a promotional tool in the future, start doing it (and networking) now.

I have a website - I think that's essential it is publicised on the back of my books and in my usual email sig. I have a blog too but I haven't publicised it and don't intend to.
I would publicise the joint one I'm involved in because that's interesting and includes many published childrens' writers (http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/) but I don't want to feel obliged to be remotely interesting on my own blog which is read by about four people and is mainly there to record my writing progress or lack of it.
(I have discovered that all my books elicit the same emotional pattern in me as I'm writing so that I know that both the despair and the elation are likely to be short lived and bear no relationship to the quality of what I'm doing.)
Intelligent, entertaining blogging is difficult and I see myself as a fiction writer not a blogger and there isn't time in my life to be both.