What do blogs do?

Blogs, tweets, and other forms of social media have different functions. Some are to entertain, to enlighten, or just to blow off steam. But what they all have in common is that they were created to build an audience, for whatever reason.

As a writer, I do not owe my audience any personal information about my life, my family, or friends anymore than my audience would owe me the same. The call is yours and not demanded...

Try to follow Amanda Hocking for a month on Twitter and you might wonder why in the hell anyone reads her books. Still, it seems her fans seem to like it, so her sometime incoherent ramblings works for her...

Erin Kassikay said:

BUT, in saying this, I've come to learn that to be successful in writing, I may have to start blogging.

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I'm not at all convinced this is true. In fact, I'm sure it's not. You'd be much better off refining your craft, than blogging.

Seconded. The number of blogs that become books is very few.

The first thing my agent and my publisher asked me upon signing was not 'When's your blog up?' but 'When are you writing the sequel?' They asked about blogs later.

Erin Kassikay said:

What do blogs do?

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Generally, take up bandwidth.

Blogs put things on the internet. Any thing other than that is a matter of personal choice and design.

Erin Kassikay said:

Oh, I'm not talking about blogging more than writing! I'm just talking about how authors seem to blog about their books and conventions. I guess when I get published with a few books beneath the belt, I'll have a reason to blog about that sort of thing too. But for now, I don't see a reason to blog OR tweet (in fact, I never see a reason to tweet). I just wasn't sure if it was needed yet.

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If you have a message you'd like to share a blog is a nice way to do it. Just keep in mind that with the number of blogs out there it might take a while for your message to be noticed.

It's a way for me to keep up with and socialize with like-minded people. In my case, my favorite people--writers. I try to inform, enlighten, instruct and entertain to the best of my ability. It's a two-side coin for info swap.If they read and comment I learn new things from them, about their experiences, publishing news and the industry in general.

tri

There's no requirement to blog. If you want to, it's worth it, otherwise? Meh.

I use blogging as a way to meet new people (I'm a social butterfly) and also learn about others and their books or ideas. I think blogging is certainly *not* for everyone, but I enjoy it.

I've read some interesting points on this subject. My understanding is that blogging is pushed as another way for authors to build and maintain an audience. Even pre-publication, you could theoretically have built a sizable audience eager to purchase your new book as soon as it comes out. But if you're looking for a sizable flow of regular readers, you'll have to do a lot of work to spread the news of the existence of your blog, which takes time and effort and thus is a thing to start sooner rather than later. Apparently there are rare cases of individuals who actually sold their book based on the evidence of the number of people coming to their site eager to read what they wrote.

I recently built my site because I had read over and over that having one would help me sell my work. Will it? I don't know. But I know I've put all sorts of work into my writing, and making a website with a blog is well within my capabilities and not really a big deal. I basically asked myself how it could hurt and then went with it.

The hardest part was initially deciding what I would write about, because I'm a private person. So far I do short entries that are related to what I write and ideally of interest to the people who would later choose to read my books. That's my goal, anyway.

The most comprehensive argument for blogging that I've read came from the book The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Eckstut and Sterry.

Hmm. I rekindled my blog just yesterday. I said meh, why not. Scheduled a couple post and the hell with it.

Last year, when it was active, it started to gain some traction, getting upwards of 100 hits or so every other day. Got some comments (some posts I deleted with said comments), and some followers. However, I'm the perpetual procrastinator, and when things start feeling like a chore, I tend to quite. The only reason I reopened it was because I'm finishing my 1st draft and wanted to document it in public. Mainly, finishing my ms gave me initiative to follow through with things, so I hope to follow through with the blog.

In any event, I'm kind of intrigued at how an MG online platform will work. Online time and dedication will tell. Hmm. I might blog about this.

I'm actually interested in creating a blog for myself, but I really don't know what I would blog about... I'm far too paranoic with copyright -- and too ashamed of posting what I write as well. But I guess I could give it a try... Someday.

Just because a lot of authors blog does not mean most authors blog or that they achieve very much by doing so.