Blogging and Professional Writing

[SDNess]

Is "blogging" the trick to getting published these days or is it just a waste of time?

Simple question, I guess. Expand if you'd like though.

[Hypes]

Far from a waste of time, but not likely a form of output suited for that purpose.

[littlemissattitude]

About the only way that I see my blog as a way into being published is that I use it as a place to hone my writing skills. I've been trying to write some column-length things over there that I might be able to use as portfolio entries for shopping around to newspapers. Other than that, I think blogging is just for fun and an outlet for bees I get in my bonnet about different stuff that isn't always necessarily topic-appropriate for around here.

By the way, for those of you who haven't looked in yet, you can get to my blog by clicking on the link in my signature below. How's that for shameless self-promotion?

[knivesout]

You'd be surprised to learn that people have recieved book contracts on the strength of their blogs. It may just be a flash in the pan thing, but I'll try and find the references.


Blogs are also a good way to hone your writing of course, but they can serve as an online forum of your own, putting your work out in the public eye and serving as a platform for networking.

[I, Brian]

Blogging to get published? Not a chance. I'll be impressed if a couple of people have been picked up by any traditional print publishers - out of the potential millions who do it. You may as well enter the lottery, for all the opportunity it offers, though. I'll bet anyone picked up for publishing was making rounds aside from blogging, though. Complete cynicism reigns here.

[Lacedaemonian]

I find that hard to believe.

[knivesout]

Here is a link (from a biased source of course): http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.p...r=674&topic=-1

Blogging alone will not get you a book deal, naturally. But I do believe that a good blog, well maintained with content relating to a specific core topic, can help to increase one's profile, if thoughtfully linked to as part of an overall self-promotion process. Basically, my point is that it can be more than just a diary on the net...

[Esioul]

Mine is just a diary on the net, so that I can complain and moan and groan as much as I like without anyone really knowing who I am. I'm not at all looking for anything by writing in my journal.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by knivesout

I do believe that a good blog, well maintained with content relating to a specific core topic, can help to increase one's profile, if thoughtfully linked to as part of an overall self-promotion process.

Substitute "blog" for "forum" here...

[Lacedaemonian]

I can not imagine being able to captivate people with a blog.

[polymorphikos]

If not Blogs, then things within blogs work.

www.livejournal.com/users/cleolinda/99710.html

This person, for example, appears to have been picked-up on the strength of her "Movies in Fifteen Minutes" posts. She may be lying, but I doubt it.

Blogs themselves, though, are just journals. Maybe if you had a famous one it might make it into book-form or somesuch, but I don't see how a journal could get you published.

[I, Brian]

I'm not sure where the "being published" reference is on that site - there's a lot of junk waffle there - but I'd be pretty incredulous if a traditional printing publisher had picked her up.

At the end of the day - to return to knivesout comment, any kind of webpublishing *might* be useful for getting published, beause it raises your profile - and a raised profile means better marketing potential - hence, more likely that person can sell and be sold.

Hence why celebrities can fetch 6 figure sums for autobiographies, even if they cannot otherwise write.

Publishing companies do not exist to serve the most creative fiction there is - they exist to make *profit* providing for literary markets.

So if a literary agent decides that she/he can take on board a new client, then that new client has to show creative ability, and be marketable/saleable.

I actually came to the internet to create an internet presence for being published. So that if a literary agent were faced with taking on board...

...a general aspirant, who has written a quality work of fiction, and maybe even manged one or two short stories for small sff publications - - - or another general aspirant, who has also written a quality work of fiction, but also manages an active online community of over 5,000 members, and can self-market their own work to 50,000 unique visitors to their website every month

- - - - - - - - > then which aspiring writer will be most likely to be of most appeal to the publishing companies, therefore the agent?

I would doubt that the second aspirant would even be offered a contract simply on the basis of those internet figures - after all, the publisher needs a quality saleable work. But I figure such a presence and obvious markability should help tip the balance when it comes to new authors being signed up.

[Lacedaemonian]

Having your own website would definitely be helpful. Having friends with websites may also be helpful. Depends how much traffic they get, and how well placed your product is on that site. How many books do you think that you would sell off the back of this site Brian? I would buy it, as would the rest of the die hards, but how many of the google spiders would you ensnare? Just curious mate.

[I, Brian]

If published, I'm sure a small banner at the top wouldn't go amiss. But, frankly, I'm sure that selling self-published would be a hell of a slog. I've seen other put a fair amount of money into online advertising, and so far as I can tell it doesn't pay off.

I'd rather put all my effort and money into getting my manuscript as good as possible - pay for line-editing - rather than redirect the effort into marketing a less quality self-published novel.

Would books sell from here? I'm sure they could - but from here alone I doubt any writer would get rich from self-publishing without extreme luck and circumstance.

[Lacedaemonian]

I reckon that you would only sell 200, 300 books max from this site in the first six months of being published. However, if you frequented a larger number of genre forums and befriended a lot of people... who knows? It would not leave you very much time to read, write or research.