Why Blog? (or What's the Use?)

Tip of the Day: WriteOnCon is happening again this year! Mark your calendars on August 13-14 for this free online kidlit writing conference. Thanks, WriteOnCon team!

A few weeks ago, agent Michael Bourret blogged about why he hasn't felt like blogging lately. To paraphrase, he wonders if there is anything left to blog about that hasn't already been said -- sometimes better -- by someone else. He also speculates that there is so much internet "noise" out there that he doesn't necessarily need to add to it.

I understand where he's coming from. From someone who used to blog weekly on Author2Author, and periodically on my own LiveJournal where I now only post book reviews, I am definitely in blog fatigue. I also have a FaceBook page that I use more to keep up with my friends than talk about myself, and I tweet for my library @bmlkidsteens when I have time or am so inspired. Now that I am preparing to self epub my YA novel, I need to get a website up and running -- but it feels like a daunting prospect (another web presence to keep up with!) and redundant (I'm already on the web in four different places!).

Similarly, I used to bookmark blogs from writers, librarians, and other kidlit industry pros to check daily, or follow them on LJ or through RSS feeds. Now, though, I don't have time because there are so many out there, and also the "groundbreaking" stuff tends to find its way to me through other means.

So, what purpose does blogging serve me now? And what purpose do others' blogs serve me?

My answer? I now look at blogs as part of a "body of work" rather than an up-to-the-minute view of one's life.

To expand on that, if I want to stalk someone -- and come on, we all do it -- I will check out their recent tweets or FB posts. But if I want to see substantial information about a person, or learn more about their writing or life pursuits, I will go through multiple blog posts on their site at one time. In other words, I will read their body of work in one sitting and most likely not "follow" the blog after that once I've learned what I need to know.

So when I'm researching agents, I don't check in every day with the blogs/tweets/posts of all those I'm considering querying; instead I just find one person, read all I can to feel informed, send the query or not, and then move on. If I get a request for pages from the agent, I might dig a little farther.

And that is how I'm thinking about my own blogging now. If I query an agent who wants to learn more about me, he/she can click on the link to this site and see my "body of work" here. That is more imporant to me than showing that I am capable of posting a few paragraphs every week.

This is a place to get to know me, my style, my sense of humor (hopefully!), and that I do enjoy social media but am not devoting my life to my presence here.

At least, this is how I'm thinking today....

How is everyone else using their blogs these days?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

I Blame Facebook...

Tip of the Day: Jessica Verday (The Hollow Trilogy) announced yesterday the short story anthology she is publishing with 25 YA authors (I'm in there too!). Click here to read the full announcement.

My blog habits have changed SO much over the years. Like Deena, I never thought about blogs until I decided to give YA writing a try in 2005. The first blogs I followed were Lauren Barnholdt and Robyn Schneider. I was 29 at the time and these two ladies were in their early twenties and publishing YA books. I thought they were totally inspirational and I remember thinking if they could do it so could I. So I studied everything they said, what blogs they recommended, agents they had submitted to etc., and I read everything I could YA related. When I joined Lauren's YA Chicklit class online I had to start a live journal blog to participate. And I loved it! I pretty much talked about everything and anything writing related and I loved the support and cheering of the YA community on LJ as everyone was searching for agents and submitting to publishers. At that point I was reading as many blogs as I could. I loved knowing what everyone else was doing on their writing journeys. So much, me and the A2A girls started up this blog. And After I got an agent and sold my first book I joined the 2009 Debutantes and read the posts on there daily too.

Then something happened. There was a big blog reading drop off for me. I'm not sure what it was exactly. Was it that I had published books now and I wasn't reading agent blogs or blogs about the beginning of the publishing journey anymore? Was it that my four kiddos weren't babies anymore and my free time was now divided up between boy scouts/girl scouts/ballet/karate/soccer/swimming/gymnastics/school? Or was it the explosion of twitter and facebook and everyone I've ever met in my entire life being on there and discussing everything from their kids poop to their killer pot roast recipe?

I blame Facebook.

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

A History of My Blog Habits (or "We Didn't Start the Fire")

*With apologies to Billy Joel

Tip of the Day: Getting sucked into The Bachelor can really dig into Monday night writing time....

When I started my first blog on LiveJournal in 2006, it was just for an online YA writing class; I didn't expect to keep it going, but as more and more writers I came to "know" on Verla Kay's message board posted about their writing lives on LJ, the more I wanted to keep up with my "Friends List" -- and I also wanted to contribute something to those who "friended" me back. I've never been comfortable with posting too many personal anecdotes online, so my LJ became a place for me to write short summaries and reviews of every book I read. I like that identity for my LJ; anyone who chooses to follow me knows what to expect. Maintaining it also allows me to get more "personal" with some of my "friends" because I can comment on their posts.

In 2009 when we started A2A, I decided this would be my blog to post about writing from both the creative and business sides. I know that my posts here are sometimes more engaging than others, but I enjoy keeping this blog not only for conneting with readers, but also with my A2A Misses, and it forces me to "publish" a piece every week and to think about writing topics.

I don't know that I'll ever trade these two blogs for Twitter or Facebook, although I have minimally used accounts for both.

In terms of my blog reading, besides those on my LJ feed right now I tune into some publisher blogs, a group blog, and others as tweeted/linked to -- as time allows. That's where I am now in my online reading life.

But sometimes what I'm doing in my life changes how I read blogs. When I was looking for an agent, I read a TON of agent blogs. When I subbed to a few editors on my own in between agents, I read a TON of editor blogs, or blogs where they were interviewed. And I think that's OK. As long as the material is out there on the internet, I like knowing I can tune into different entries when I need them.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Blogology

Tip of the Day: Enter to win books in a contest to congratulate Debbie Ridpath Ohi (Inkygirl) for her S&S book contract!

How many blogs do you read every day?

If you're like me, you would like to keep up with more blogs, and yet I feel guilty about the amount of time I spend on the computer. The challenge has always been to keep up with the RIGHT blogs--and once I've found a great blog, to be able to find it again.

Blogging has changed a lot since I started here at Author2Author over 2 years ago. Back then, I had a list of favorite blogs in my Internet browser bookmark, and I checked each one over lunch at the office. But it got too big, so I moved to a blog reader, Bloglines. That went under and then was purchased and relaunched recently.

In the meantime, I tried to migrate to Google Reader, but by then I was also trying to keep up with Facebook and Twitter. I found myself reading more and more blogs I had never read before, sucked in by intriguing Twitter "headlines." "I should promote Author2Author on Twitter," I think, but I'm not chatty on Twitter. I use it more to get news. And who wants to only hear from someone about promotion?

Lately, my personal and work life have both been super busy, so I've had less time online than ever. There are a few blogs I check on a regular basis no matter how bad it gets:

http://migwriters.blogspot.com/ My online critique group, MiG Writers. I love this group because we have such varying life experiences and viewpoints.

http://andrea-mack.blogspot.com/ I really need to plug Andrea Mack's extremely thoughtful, well-written blog on writing, That's Another Story.

http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/ How to Write Badly Well. It will cheer you up immensely.

http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/ Bookshelves of Doom. If it's going on in YA lit, the very funny Leila Roy knows about it.

http://joshreads.com/ The Comics Curmudgeon. Comic strips commentary. Really. The highlight of my lunch hour.

Now I used to follow a lot more: Editorial Anonymous, Nathan Bransford, Live Journal accounts. (Hey, I still try to check in on my LJ buddies, but LJ is becoming increasingly incomprehensible to me.) But lately I rely on Twitter buzz to let me know when someone's blog is especially hot. And I suspect I'm not alone in this sea change. So I feel more pressure to be interesting. Look at me!! I'm interesting!!

Then I see a link to a blog post of mine from a year ago, and I realize that these entries are semi-permanent. This seems to be happening more and more with the increase in blogs: people link to old blog posts "on topic." Blogging has changed a lot since the LJ "what I did today" days.

Regular blogging doesn't seem to mean as much as hot, topical content. Do you agree?

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Some thoughts on blogging

Tip of the Day: A really good berry muffin recipe right HERE.

I've been reading a few up-and-coming authors' blogs for a while, paying particular attention to the topics of their posts and why they have hundreds and hundreds of followers and get more comments than any other author blogs that I've seen.

And here is what I have concluded.

People like funny.

People like perky.

And people LOVE witty.

I actually talked to one of these authors recently about her blog's success, and she told me what I had suspected all along.

She works at her blog. She is intentional about what she puts out there, and only shows the world a very narrow slice of the pie of her life. She knows people don't want to read negative stuff. People don't want to read about depressing stuff. And people *really* don't want to read all-promo all-the-time-time stuff. They want to be informed or entertained. And so that's what she does, over and over and over again.

I'm guessing writing a funny, perky, witty blog post five days a week takes a lot of effort. Will it pay off when the book hits the shelf? My bet is yes, it will. Because you read these blogs that are thought out and well written, and they show us these wonderful people, and we want to be THEIR FRIENDS. And guess what? We like reading books our friends write!

My personal blog has been lacking in good content lately. I've been doing other things - exercising, hanging with the kids, making muffins and pies, going on walks, reading books. I've been blogging for 5+ years now, and I think perhaps I'm a little tired. Okay, a lot tired. And so I'm giving myself a break. But when I see what these authors are doing, how they've hooked readers to keep coming back for more and how that will most likely transfer to book sales, I start to wonder if there's a way for me to do that.

Except there are kids to play with, walks to go on, books to read and workouts to do. In the end, is there a payoff for the time spent blogging? Like, a big payoff? What do you think?

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career