lydamorehouse | (Reply)

From:

I totally agree with you in terms of why you blog.

You ask if you think this is why most authors feel like they have to blog, and I'm going to throw out a tentative "yes...?" At least, for me, when I first started out, there was a certain amount of expectation that blogging would be a part of your promotion. Even as late as Precinct 13, my publisher wanted me to write soft-advertisement posts in guest spots on popular book blogs. I HATED this kind of writing and was especially bad at it (possibly why Precinct 13 is my last professionally published book??)

However, I have long argued that no reader, including myself, has ever not recognized soft-advertisement for what it is and been completely and utterly turned OFF by it. I think that how people find writers on the internet (outside of the obvious reviews) is very magical and can not be duplicated by any form of "hustle." For instance, I picked up Cherie Priests books because I adored the stupid videos she posted of her cat (at the time), Spain. When I found out she also wrote SF/F, I was like, "Yes, sign me up. That's Spain's mom!" How could you ever distill that into anything anyone else could ever use as a promotional tool? You can't.

And, yeah, for me, what I LOVE is reading about the mundanity of people's lives, what they did, what they thought about... all of it.