I remain puzzled.
This month is the month I am going to start querying. I expect I will be querying for most of the year, and if I do not have an agent by that time, I will re-evaluate (should I self-publish? Is this a trunk novel? Do I need to do some massive rewrite? Or is it just my query letter that sucks? etc.)
So as for the website, how would this benefit me at this time (from those that say "never too early")?
As for a blog, not to be too dense, but what would I be blogging about? If there is a good example of an emerging author blog, I would love to read it, so please mention it if you know one.
Firstly, it shows you are very serious about the writing. Secondly, if you're working on a second project, it shows you're intending to stick at it, and you can put samples up
Thirdly, if the author can't evidence that they have the ability to self-promote, and the drive to do so, it might just be another hurdle put in place.
Also, they're not that difficult to set up, and they don't cost much any more. I was lucky and someone took care of all that for me, but I know others who use the build-it-yourself type where you select the domain name and the style from a preloaded list.
Um, blogging: I do a few book reviews, not many, mainly if I'm blown away one way or the other, I talk about the wips, where I'm up to, what hurdles I'm facing, and I talk about other related stuff - like yesterday I was singing the praises of Query letter hell. I don't have a following, as such, a few people, mostly other sci fi writers who know me.
On the other website where I blog that's more open, usually musings about writing - there's one up there about what I learned from AW about query letters this week that's been reasonably well visited - but it's really one for friends in a SFF community.
It's all about upping your profile, because whether you go self published, or get an agent, in the new-tech world, they'll expect you to do some of the legwork.
Oh, and twitter is really good both for raising profiles and for following info on agents and what not. Last night I was able to join the agent game discussion and find out about something that was worrying me from my query thread, and all three agents that were on it responded, which was a really good opportunity. (Plus slushpile hell is very funny.)