One of my buds has blog entries for her characters as a way of promoting her books. It works great and she enjoys maintaining it, though I wonder where she finds the time!
On the negative side, I found some people who had detailed blogs of MY published characters up.
One of them posted extensive excerpts from the books--complete with major spoilers!--as daily entries. Reviews, quotes or critiques are fair use, but this was not.
They did not have permission, and there was nothing on the blog to suggest I had not written it myself. (Some of the "personal" entries were pretty awful). I asked the blog server to ask them to take the blogs down. They were gone within a week as soon as I proved my copyright ownership to the server.
Because of clauses in contracts with various publishers--this is usually a boilerplate item--a writer is supposed to take action if he or she finds copyright infringement of any his or her work. If they don't, then the publisher could sue the writer.
Since my publishers don't pay me much I can't afford not to be a blue meanie.
The bloggers got off lightly. As did the server. There might be hurt feelings for some, but had the pub. lawyers got wind of things it would have turned ugly. I don't need ugly in my life, I'd rather be writing.
If the bloggers ASKED permission and done a halfway decent job of writing I might have been flattered and made theirs official sites and even helped a bit.
But they did not, and I had to take action. Most gamers and fic writers understand that and respect it. If a published writer says no, just walk away. Once in a while I encounter one of the impolite fringe types who refuse to get it. Happily, they are rare.
You guys be
safe and make sure to blog with characters you do have permission to use. I always encourage writers to promote their own creations.
A blog can be a fun way to get to know your characters, just don't let it steal time away from your main writing!
