The Blog Trap

It’s been about a year since we last addressed the issue of whether or not authors should blog but the topic is being debated on a few listservs and other blogs and I thought it was time to revisit it.

First.

When it comes to writing, the most important job we all have is to write our books. If we don’t put our best effort there we aren’t doing our jobs. No author should sacrifice writing time for blogging time or promotion time if it’s going to weaken the book.

There’s a saying we have in advertising:

Nothing will kill a mediocre product faster than a great ad.

Sure you can get a lot of people to buy your book if you go promotion crazy.

But what then?

Once they all read it, if you don’t deliver the read you promised, they will never buy you again.

On the other hand, the sad truth that we’re all facing is that there are more books being published than there is time or money or room to promote. So even if you can have written one of the best books of the year, no one will discover if no one gets the word out.

So with the caveat about balancing your writing life and your business as a writer’s life said. Let’s get back to blogs.

Last year when I wrote about this topic there were 19 million blogs. Now there are over 36.6 million.

Right.

36.6 million blogs.

That’s more than the number of copies of the Da Vinci Code has sold in the US. And Dan Brown did it all without a blog. (All right so he did have over a million dollars in promotion and advertising but that’s another story.)

The point here about the 36.6 million is if you build the blog they will not come unless you drag them to it.

That means if you are an author and you have something to say and you want to share it with anyone who might happen by go right ahead. But if you are looking for a powerful marketing tool that is going to help you sell books you have to evaluate if a blog really will help or turn out to be nothing but a big time drain. 

Before you start a blog and give up those hours that you could spend honing your novel or working on more reader oriented marketing, take a look at the blogs already out there that are being hosted by authors.

Look at who that blog links to and using Technorati find out who links to that blog. Read the comments for a few days, too. Those measures will give you a good sense of who’s reading the blog. And unless you find a lot of blogs that I couldn’t find you’ll discover the great majority of authors’ blogs - including this one– are being read by and are geared to publishers, agents, writers or all three.

For some of us that works. For instance, professionally– I’m half novelist and half marketer – and this blog is an excellent for the marketer half. On that scale it’s a huge successes. I get a lot of AuthorBuzz business from people who have been reading this bog.

But if I was using this blog for my novelist half, I would to say it’s a failure. This blog doesn’t sell my fiction. It’s not geared to do that. It was not my intention to use it for that and despite my hoping there was going to be a cross over effect there wasn’t. Just stop and ask yourself – if you’ve read one of my novels was it because you read this blog or was it because someone who you respect said they liked one of them?

Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with having a blog geared to your peers. I read other authors’ blogs – and enjoy them – but of the dozen or so I frequent – not one has ever convinced me to try that authors’ fiction.

Those blogs aren’t talking to me the reader.

I think that every successful blog has a GAP – a clear GOAL, an identifiable AUDIENCE, and an outlet for the author’s authentic PASSION.

Passion might be a strange one in that mix but its key. Otherwise your readers will see through your efforts. This gig takes a lot of time so you better care about what you’re blogging about because authenticity comes through online.

Looking around, I haven’t found many authors’ blogs to use as an example of how we can use their blogs to increase our reader base. If you have examples, please email me. And again let me reiterate there are many many authors’ blogs I think are great and I read – but they aren’t geared to readers, they aren’t helping the author sell his or her novels.

One example I can give is Barry Eisler’s blog. It’s new so it’s too soon to tell but I think he’s created something that will increase his fan base. Take a look. He has a carefully worked out GAP and by posting the entries on his own site and his Amazon connect blog as well he’s making good use of his time.

Your blog is your blog.

You can do hundreds of things with it that will matter to you and others that make it a worthwhile endeavor. It doesn’t have to be a marketing tool.

But just having a blog does not a marketing tool make.

So if you are looking for a marketing tool you need to remember that a blog in itself won’t function that way unless you carefully craft it to do that.

No question, non fiction authors have a much easier time of it when it comes to blogs as marketing tools since they can blog about the subject of the book and appeal to their potential reader on an ongoing basis. Not so easy with fiction authors.

Before you start your blog work on your GAP.

What’s your goal? Who is your audience and how are you going to find them? And does you subject engage you totally – are you passionate about it.

Then, at least if nothing else, you’ll have some fun with all this.

Which, in itself, isn’t a bad reason to make the effort.

And while we’re talking blogs, hop over to my reader centric Backstory and meet author Tobias Buckell who writes: "Ever since I was five or so and read my first SF novel I knew that I would end either being an astronaut or a science fiction novelist. I grew up in the Caribbean, but as time went by I realized almost no genre authors came from or wrote about the islands. It wasn't until I read Bruce Sterling's Islands in The Net that I came across a novel that took the Caribbean seriously, and I decided my first novel would do the same. However I focused on writing and selling short fiction to earn my apprenticeship."

Comments

[Jason]

Terrific post, M.J. The more I read author blogs, the more I see similarities which you've correctly identified. The vast majority of posts on author blogs are about the technical process of writing, self-promoting, or the steps to getting published. These are all things that appeal to a narrow segment of the population (i.e. writers, agents, editors/publishers). But most people who buy novels want great stories, and probably don't care much whether it took 2 weeks or 2 years to sell the book to a publisher or how you found an agent. When I buy a DVD, it's rarely for the director's commentary. It's a nice bonus, but I'm not going to buy it unless the movie is terrific to begin with. I think there's room for industry speak since it can be fascinating, but if your focus is too narrow your blog readership will be too. I think Barry Eisler is doing a great thing by incorporating posts that are compelling, but not related to his novels, giving him a chance to attract both publishing "insiders" as well as new/old fans who love his writing. And I think this kind of blog is more apt to support one's "novelist" half.

[David J. Montgomery]

It seems that virtually every author has a blog these days (with the latest rage being multi-author combos), but I wonder how effective they are at selling books. I suspect that they will never result in enough sales to make it worth the time put into them.

Of course, there are reasons to have a blog other than simply selling books. And if one enjoys doing it for those reasons, then maybe it's a good idea. But if an author is doing it in the hopes that it will increase their sales, I'd recommend they reconsider.

There are too many blogs, not enough blog readers, and too much of a disconnect between "I read your blog" and "I'll buy your book" to justify it on that basis.

(There is also the parallel issue of a blog actually making it LESS likely that a reader will buy an author's books. The blog waters can be hazardous to your health and should be entered with caution.)

[jozef Imrich]

Terrific argument MJ Rose.

We live in the world of winners takes it all and unless one's blog is called Daily Kos I doubt that many of us get too many regular readers.

Still even the less known among us can enjoy the long tail type opportunities that the blogosphere offers - especially the long tail spin off that comes from search engines. While my blog does attract a few stalkers or nutcases ;-) I doubt that without my blog I would my story Cold River would have made it to paperback edition.

Google only ranks my blog Media Dragon 6/10 which compares miserably with Kos who is 9/10 so anyone who has a ranking less than six is paddling up the dead end creek ...

CODA: Google and other search engines tend to give writers and bloggers the greatest gift of them all - entrepreneurial marketers or advertisers as well as Recognition ;-) http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_6NJJ78_Eng

[jozef Imrich]

Terrific argument MJ Rose.

We live in the world of winners takes it all and unless one's blog is called Daily Kos I doubt that many of us get too many regular readers.

Still even the less known among us can enjoy the long tail type opportunities that the blogosphere offers - especially the long tail spin off that comes from search engines. While my blog does attract a few stalkers or nutcases ;-) I doubt that without my blog my story Cold River would have made it to paperback edition.

Google only ranks my blog Media Dragon 6/10 which compares miserably with Kos who is 9/10 so anyone who has a ranking less than six is paddling up the dead end creek ...

CODA: Google and other search engines tend to give writers and bloggers the greatest gift of them all - entrepreneurial marketers or advertisers as well as Recognition ;-) http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_6NJJ78_Eng