Just over a week ago I had a signing event for my new release, Heaven Preserve Us, at Third Place Books in Seattle. I talked about how I'd decided on food preservation as the theme for the book, how I'd researched various aspects of the story, and detailed how the setting of my Homecrafting Mysteries, Cadyville, WA, is a fictionalized version of Snohomish, WA. Then, as these things go, I took questions from the audience.
A few minutes in, a man in the front row asked what I thought about blogging. Specifically, didn't I think that bloggers were sarcastic, mean, opinionated egotists who were wasting everyone else's time?
Sitting behind him was a friend of mine who blogs for fun -- sweet, light, home-and-family oriented stuff. Her eyes were wide as he described his generalized idea of bloggers.
(I should mention here that this guy thought he was coming to hear me pontificate on the coming of Christ, having only read the name of my book in the paper -- a lesson if ever there was one about choosing titles carefully! He was sorely disappointed to learn I was there to cheerfully talk about what he later called "the greatest of all sins: murder.")
I gently suggested that perhaps he should stop reading blogs if he felt that way about them, or at least find some that fit his criteria for decency. Different strokes for different folks and all that.
But this episode highlighted the fact that during the last two weeks I've been trying to decide whether or not to start a personal blog. Actually, I've gone a little further than that. I have the name, scoped out the domain availability, investigated Blogger vs. Typepad vs. WordPress, made a long list of subjects to blather about, and, er, bought a copy of Blogging for Dummies in case I was missing anything.
Seriously. I like to be prepared.
But I haven't yet committed to doing it.
Many of the Midnight Ink authors who contribute to the Inkspot blog, and no doubt many who read it, have personal blogs as well. If you haven't checked out our member blogs yet, you should -- they're all listed under the book titles in the sidebar on the right.
So I'm here soliciting advice from you all (all y'all , if you're from the South):
What got you started in the first place?
Do you ever feel that your writing energy gets siphoned off by your blog? Or does writing your blog energize the rest of your writing?
How do you use your blog? To reach new readers? Keep up with old ones? Broadcast your opinions? Connect with other writers online? Something else entirely?
How much time do you spend on blogging?
What questions am I not asking? Any advice, opinions or general feedback to help me make this decision, either from bloggers or blog readers?
Thanks!
