By Kathie Leung

Should Aspiring Authors Maintain Websites and/or Blogs?

One of the most recent discussions we’ve been having is about the importance of blogging as an aspiring author. There are many theories out there, but the determining factor boils down to why. Why is a blog necessary?

To an unpublished author intending on going the old school way of publishing, meaning via a literary agent with the intentions of being published hard copy, there doesn’t seem to be a good enough argument for a blog. A static web page or site, yes, but a blog – no. Since this is merely a summation of the discussion, a follow-up post with the specific arguments on either side along with supporting evidence will be provided. But for the purpose of this post, we will leave it at that.

A static page or website provides a curious literary agent with a bit more insight into the author, a means for putting a face to the name should the author be bold enough to post a mugshot on the site, perhaps a sample of his/her writing. Anything more could potentially be shooting yourself in the foot. Blogging with articles about writing, thoughts, ideas, character development, politics, the grade your dearest got on a recent essay might be a bit too much information and a potential liability for the agent and/or the publishing house where your book might have been sold. Of course it depends on what specifically you say – or don’t, the points of view you offer, how liberal or conservative you happen to be; but as a general rule, a blog is iffy. If you simply must write snippets and publish them to the ‘net, why not create a blog with a screenname other than your own via any number of the free blog services out there? Just be careful not to link to them with your professional ‘net presence.

If you go with establishing an Internet presence, put some thought and consideration of what you put out there for the world to see. Once it posted, it will never ever go away. That includes Facebook, Google+,  MySpace, and Twitter. Querying an agent and seeking publication is like a job interview. Your potential employer (agent/publisher) will look and what you say and do on the Internet will be weighted accordingly. Pose a potential liability? Kiss that contract goodbye. Climb on the bandwagon thrashing an author who did this or that and what does that say about your own character? Is that a risk a publisher or an agent is willing to take if they sign you? The fact is this: we have come into an age where instant communication and public announcements made world wide is a mainstay. What might have seemed insignificant in the past, such as an erroneous web site, an unfollowed blog, a tweet made at two-thirty in the morning while three sheets to the wind, are all taken much more seriously, scrutinized, legally decided upon: Is this individual a risk we are willing to take on?

What Should Go Into A Static Website?

Your name. Your contact information that you are comfortable making public (and I mean public) such as email address (always good to have a specific account set up via Google, Yahoo! and the likes that can be disowned later on if the spam and what have you get out of control), a USPS mailing address (PO Box, preferably for the same reasons unless you really don’t mind weirdos coming to your door when they’re three sheets to the wind or better yet, off their meds), etc. The genres you write in, any publications where your work has been published (with links, of course), possibly some links to your favorite authors or agents, writing forums, etc. and then a chapter or two of your completed works that you’re in the process of actively sending out queries and pitching at conferences.

What Should NOT Go Onto A Website?

Anything personally identifiable. Don’t post pictures of your kids. Don’t post a map to your city. Don’t post your cell phone number. Don’t post your social security number, tax-id number, credit card information. Just don’t. Even if you have -1 followers, never, ever post anything personal.

What if I have no intentions of traditionally publishing my work and am moving straight into self-publishing?

The key here is selling your work, right? You want people to read your novel, more importantly to buy your novel. Blogging from a main character’s point of view is a nifty idea so long as you’re not giving your novel away for free. But blogging about the craft of writing without selling a significant number of books? Probably not such a good idea. That’s my own personal opinion.

We (The Chico Writer’s Group) have had self-published authors come through our doors in the past and I know others who have self-published as well. With one exception, there is a reason why these individuals self-published: they couldn’t take the rejection from the agents they were querying. But was their writing worthy of going into print? With one exception – hell no. Did they have a good grasp on the craft? Absolutely not. Did they provide useful advice on how to write? Nope.

It’s dangerous to be out there writing about the craft if you aren’t well versed in it. This, of course, is an argument many have in the kingdom of writing. There are some who strongly believe that unless you are a published author, meaning through the traditional process, you have no right to be giving advice about the craft. There are others who feel there is merit to talking about the craft, so it all boils down to where you personally stand on the issue. But if you are intending on using your site to promote your self-published work, my advice is to keep your thoughts, opinions, and advice regarding the craft completely separate from the promotional website/blog.

What are the Pros of Blogging?

Selling your books once you actually are published.
Making your writing samples accessible to literary agents you are querying.
Establishing links with other authors, both published and aspiring, that might lead to book sales once you are published.
Possibly gaining attention from someone who might put you on the path towards publication.

What are the Cons of Blogging?

Time. It takes a lot of time to blog and keep up with the whole process of maintaining a blog. If you stop blogging for any reason, it takes a long time to reestablish yourself within the network once you return.

Promoting thoughts and ideas which others might be offended by. I know of authors, from best sellers to strictly self-published, who have spewed their personal opinions on anything from politics to religion. And I know that in several cases, their opinions were so strong that they offended their readership, enough that some of those who were offended stopped reading them altogether, both their blogs and their novels.  In one particular case, there was a call to boycott the author.

Wearing egg on your face. Blogging about things you think you know about but might come to learn later on you clearly did not could be potentially damaging. Of course, a well-thought out post that doesn’t necessarily put the thoughts out there as unarguable fact and leaves it open for dialog – and such dialog follows the golden rule of debating the thought, not attacking the thinker, would prevent this from being problematic thus moving this from a con to a pro. All depends on how you handle conveying the thoughts and the subsequent discussion.

Will Not Having a Site/Blog HURT Sales? 

I don’t know if there is a way to actually tell this. I happen to like the idea of an author establishing a presence on the Internet, but if I’m looking for a new author, I’d be more likely to tune into Amazon’s recommended reading lists, the New York Times, and up until recently, Oprah’s book club reads. Once I became familiar with the author, I might follow them on Facebook, connect with them on Google Plus, add them on Twitter (even tho I’m hardly ever there) and hunt them down on the web. Still, I’m hardly a repeat visitor but that’s just me. I know of some that are so into the characters an author builds or the style the author writes in that they become obsessed. I aspire to become one of those that can create obsessable (yes, my own word) characters and style.

More on this topic: 

Joe Konrath, author of the best selling Jack Daniels books (an obsessable character) has an excellent website for readers, authors, and those in the business of publishing.

Be careful when reading posts off a search about this topic. The date of the post is the most important thing to consider. Anything that has been discussed prior to the big push to self-publish and epublish without the use of an agent (e.g. directly via a publisher) is outdated. More information and resources to come in a few weeks.

As always, you are welcome to post your comments and thoughts on this topic!

Kathie Leung is a published author of poetry and short stories and an aspiring author of mystery/thriller/suspense novels. She is the founder, organizer, and moderator of the Chico Writer’s Group. More about Kathie can be found at www.kathieleung.com

We’ll be answering these questions and enjoying some free write time during our regular writers group meeting.  Visitors are welcome! This is a free event.

Critique Workshop and Craft Chat

Date: Saturday, March 21, 2009
Times: 4 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Meeting Room (directly across from circulation desk)
Chico Branch, Butte County Library
Address: 1108 Sherman Avenue, Chico

Agenda

• 4-4:30 p.m. Free Write followed by Craft Chat
• 4:30-6:30 p.m. Critique Workshop
  • m.s.s in this order:
    • D. H.
    • R. A.
    • L. H.*

]]> http://ejourn.net/cwg/2009/03/15/craft-chat-race-and-ethnicity/feed/ 0 http://ejourn.net/cwg/2009/03/06/how-not-to-be-targeted-by-the-evil-queryfail/ http://ejourn.net/cwg/2009/03/06/how-not-to-be-targeted-by-the-evil-queryfail/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:01:42 +0000 Kathie http://ejourn.net/cwg/2009/03/06/how-not-to-be-targeted-by-the-evil-queryfail/ Thursday, March 6, 2009

Yesterday various agents and editors got together on Twitter and posted a wild rash of reasons they will reject a query letter.  If you haven’t read the 140 or less character tweets we collected, now would be a really good time.

How do you write a winning query letter that won’t be labeled “fail” by these editors, agents and interns working in publishing houses?  We’ve collected a few really good articles that will help you get your foot in the door.  Take a gander: (hint: click the links as they’ll take you directly to the article we’re referencing.)

• Mystery author, S. W. Hubbard, has a great article here: www.swhubbard.com
• Ester Heller, Editor-in-Chief, Targum Press posted the following guidelines Nov. 2008: http://blogs.targum.com
• A summation of yesterday’s #queryfail experiment and lessons learned can be found here at the Belletrinsic blog: http://belletrinsic.blogspot.com
• Tara Lazar did a summation, too, that’s worth perusing and can be found here: http://taralazar.blogspot.com
• Colleen Lindsay, the literary agent (FinePrint Literary Management) responsible for yesterday’s #queryfail, has a site crammed full of useful information to pick through.  Start here: http://theswivet.blogspot.com and be sure to look around the site, it’s very useful!
• Jill Corcoran has a very well put together “how to write a query letter” post that’s very timely, too, as it was published on March 1st, 2009: http://jillcorcoran.blogspot.com Be sure to check out the posts she links to as well (run your cursor over the page to find the links which aren’t underlined).  Bookmark the post as it is a great resource!

Still need more?  Want a template of sorts?  Short of sending out the monkeys to write it for you (and no, we won’t do that — didn’t you read yesterday’s capture of the #queryfail tweets?), Nathan Bransford with Curtis Brown LTD provides you with a great “Mad Lib” style query letter.  Just be sure to change it up a bit so it’s more personalized!  Go check it out at: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/03/query-letter-mad-lib.html

If you have your own tips, winning recipe, experience to share, by all means, leave a comment!  Good luck, too!

• Writing Dialect: It’s in the Rhythm by Cameron Michaels
• How to Avoid Writing Dialect in Plays
• Dialect Survey Maps – A collection of maps showing the regional variations in terms and pronunciations in the US.
• Writing Dialect in Fiction by Tony Burton – Contains several examples from classic literature.
• Using Dialect in Fiction by Jennifer Jensen – Another discussion of use of dialect.
• Writing Accents and Dialects by Charles Carson – Includes some caution that how you write accents and dialects may say more about you than about the characters.
• Write stuff: Avoid using dialect, phonetic spelling by Rusty Lang – Advice on using dialect and phonetic spelling in journalistic writing.
• The International Dialects of English Archive – "IDEA was created in 1997 as a free, online library of primary source recordings for the performing arts." Includes transcripts of the audio samples. Note: Each audio sample begins with the person reading a passage. You may want to skip past this to the unscripted speech.
• Internet Archive – Contains many freely available movies and audio recordings. May require some digging to find the dialect you’re looking for.
• radio-locator and Web-Radio – Search for radio stations; results will show you which ones you can listen to over the Internet. Both include search by state.

Recently a couple of our writing group members met for coffee.  During the casual conversation, the discussion evolved to one about place and setting.  How appropriate seeing our upcoming craft chat will be about just that: place and setting.  The frustration one writer was experiencing was borne from moving rapidly back and forth in the story, jumping from one part of the nation to another, sometimes having events occurring simultaneously yet in different chapters.  How, the question surfaced, do you keep your audience engaged?  The idea of placing time and location stamps throughout the story was suggested. 

What ideas do you have?  What have you done in your own stories?  What have you seen other authors do in similar situations?  What worked for you or didn’t?  Take a moment and share your thoughts by clicking on the comments link.  Remember, your email address will not be published, however it is necessary; otherwise our spam detection bot will toss it into the trash.