Robin Hobb, whose books we all know and love, wrote this essay/story about authors who blog.
I’m with her mostly. I do think that writers should be measured and careful should they chose to begin blogging.
Although I enjoy the blog posts of many of my favorite authors like Jim C. Hines, Bruce Cordell, Paul S. Kemp, Tobias Buckell, GRRM, Joe Abercrombie, and others, I would much rather have more books out of them than blog posts. Yet I look for there thoughts in my RSS reader everyday, and enjoy them.
If they can do both, as a fan, I’m grateful. But should they choose to agree with Hobb, than I support that. I would rather they use their energies on their writing and raising their families than in pleasing me.
Related posts:
I’ve been receiving your posts via feedburner for a few months now. Although, I’m not generally a sci-fi reader, I’ve enjoyed reading what you have to say. This article by Robin Hobb stings. I recently started blogging and am absolutely loving it. But, I am realizing that the alure is mostly because it is easier. Granted, I have never been published, so noone is waiting for my next book. And, with little ones at home right now, I doubt I could focus enough to do serious work on my writing, but this article sure brought food for thought. Thanks for sharing. Thanks also for mentioning the people-reading blog. I have enjoyed visiting there as well.
I’ve seen a lot of blogs from writers and am not a huge fan of most. If done correctly, they can be fascinating and a brilliant and inexpensive tool for increasing readership (AKA book sales), but most end up being diary-style entires about what the cat is doing, what happened at the con, what type of food the kid shot out of his nose…
I suppose it’s a matter of personal preference, but I don’t need to know those things. Industry secrets, reviews of books, updates on current work… that is more interesting, IMO.
So, I guess my point (vague as it is) is that an author blog can be a good thing if it’s more of a marketing tool, but I’d rather have those authors writing their next book than rambling about life (at least in a public forum). But, ya know, I’m no one, and they have every right to do what makes them happy.
GoblinGal – I find that I like the personal aspect of some of the blogs. But I agree, industry secrets etc ae more useful to a reader. I think sometimes you just have to sort through the inane posts to get to the good stuff. A few of my favorite author bloggers, as listed above do the personal stuff, but they also talk about the industry a lot, and/or other stuff I never would have found on the internet.