Why Authors Must Have a Blog

I’ve been a web developer for almost 25 years, so this is not simply from the perspective of an author, though I have published 18 books so far and show no signs of stopping.

An author without a website and blog is like any other business without a website.

The first place people go for information these days is the web. If you’re considering a new mechanic, and this one has a good website and the other has nothing, don’t you lean toward the one you can find out about online?

If you’re looking for a recipe, do you go to the library and check out a book, or do you go to Cooks.com (or just Google) ?

You can learn a lot about someone on the web. You can learn that if they’re invisible, you won’t be learning anything about them.

Your blog is not a place to sell, it’s a place to connect. The value of the blog is that potential fans will become actual fans — of YOU, not just of the book they might buy at Amazon.

Marketing your book is a long game, not a quick return. Authors who are blogging about their 4th book 5 years from now will win out over authors who are still buying advertising for their 1st book and wondering why it doesn’t work.

I maintain three blogs, but my publishing blog gets more attention than my web development blog or my personal blog. (My music blog, going on 12 years old, gets awful neglect, but I’ve got a plan.)

You’re a writer, right? Virtually all writing classes and books and websites tell us to write every day. Isn’t a blog a perfect way to do that? Sure, some of what we write isn’t worth publishing in print. But your potential fans want to know who you are and what you’re about.

Give it to ’em, plain and unvarnished.