Why Blogging May Be THE New Way to Be an Author

 by Diane Eble

In our teleseminar on blogging, Cathy Perkins told the true story of a friend of hers who has a blog and wrote a post that the Los Angeles Times contacted him about. The LA Times interviewed the blogger, and his name and blog url were included in the article. Traffic to his blog increased ten times, and who knows where that exposure will lead.

Nowadays, to the media, it's less important if you have a printed book than it used to be. If you have a well-visited blog that looks professional and people visit and comment on, you are seen as an expert.

If you are or want to be an author, you must have a blog. There's just no way around it. Your blog needs to be the hub of all you do.

The blog--not the book.

As I said on the teleseminar, the blog is going to be your primary means of showcasing your expertise. As Cathy said, quoting Alex Mandossian, "An author does not make money writing books. An author makes money explaining books."

If you have a book, you're really fortunate. Use snippets from your book, and let people know there's more in the book.

If you haven't written a book yet, you're still fortunate. You can write your book on your blog, getting feedback along the way, testing which pieces are most interesting to people.  Cathy also mentioned another person who is writing her book on the blog, a chapter a week (over several posts), and people comment that they are eager for the next post. The author is also changing what she is going to write, because of the feedback from her blog readers.

Welcome to the world of Web 2.0, folks, where the rules are being rewritten. Why not be one of the people determining what those rules are?

Get yourself a blog--now!