Blog of Monica Valentinelli, Writer & Content Consultant

Posted on March 24, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli

Does Blogging take Writers away from Writing?

Whether you have a MySpace page or on LiveJournal, Blogger, Blogspot, WordPress or TypePad, many writers get pretty frustrated when bloggers put themselves out there as “writers.” Fantasy author Robin Hobb wrote about this recently in a creative rant entitled, “Vampires of the Internet. I’d like to quote you a passage from this rant.

Ah, my writer friend. It is harsh but it must be said. Compared to the studied seduction of the novel, blogging is literary pole dancing. Anyone can stand naked in the window of the public’s eye, anyone can twitch and writhe and emote over the package that was not delivered, the dinner that burned, the friend who forgot your birthday. That is not fiction. That is life, and we all have one. Blogging condemns us to live everyone else’s tedious day as well as our own.

The point of Mr. Hobb’s rant, is that blogging interferes with a writer’s ability to write. His plea is to “don’t do it,” and I’ve heard other authors say something similar.

I don’t.

Besides the fact that I work for an online marketing agency, I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that publishing has changed and that marketing and writing go hand-in-hand. In today’s world, if you want to write you have to be multi-disciplinary to expand the scope of your knowledge beyond what I call “exquisite wordsmithing.” You have to know marketing, online (and offline) networking, finance, what sells (and what doesn’t), public speaking, and a myriad of other complementary skills. Nowadays publishers are promoting works not only based on the content, scope and quality of the work, but who wrote it. Simply, author names are turning into brands which, in turn, need to be honed, maintained, and polished.

Blogging without a purpose is just venting. Everybody does it, and everybody gets frustrated with it. Blogging for a specific reason, however, is the difference between being business-savvy or merely throwing words against a screen because you can. Since some writers only release one book every year, what better way to reach out to readers and encourage fans to consider your next book than to blog, blog, blog? Like many companies have begun to discover, blogging also builds brands. As an author, you are your own brand, so conduct your career accordingly and I know you’ll have more success.

So before you walk the path of freedom from the internet, remember that blogging can be a powerful tool if used correctly. It’s one of the many reasons why I’m doing it, and why several authors have found success with their books online. In this post, I talk about the pros and cons of using Blogger. If you don’t have a blog, it literally takes 20 minutes to set one up. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about more specifics about how blogging can help (not hurt) writers.