Why Every Author Should Blog!

  
    The popularity of blogs has soared in the last few years.  There are now
    over 100 million blogs tracked by Technorati, a popular blog search engine.
    According to demographics collected by the Pew Internet Study, blogs have
    become mainstream and represent virtually every audience and topic area.
    
    You can use blogs to:
      • Develop an audience for your work
      • Promote your book
    
    A blog bears many resemblances to a book.  Both have a title and subtitle
    that reflect the content of a book.  Blog posts can be organized into
    categories which serve as a kind of table of contents to classify and group
    related material.  Blog posts, typically 300-500 words in length, represent
    the raw content of a book.  Links within posts or on the blog roll serve as
    a bibliography, showing references to source material.
    
    How do you attract people to your blog?  Initially, through searches
    individuals make on popular search engine sites like Google, Yahoo and
    MSN. By using popular keywords in your blog title, subtitle, categories and
    posts, your blog will begin to turn up in these searches.  You can discover
    these keywords using keyword discovery tools or simply checking out popular
    blogs in your topic area.  The more you blog, the more others discover and
    link to your blog content, the higher will be the ranking of your blog site
    in search results, and the greater the traffic you will receive.
    
    Blog software usually provides a basic set of statistics that allow you to
    track important information such as number of visitors, page views,
    referring sites and average time spent by each visitor.  Page views and
    comments left by visitors for specific blog posts provide an indicator of
    popular content.  This makes blogs an excellent way for you to field test
    and select material to be included in your book.
    
    Once you have cultivated an audience, you can transform your blog into a
    great marketing platform.  For example, you can promote your book on a
    special page, featuring your bio, a book description, excerpts, press
    releases and testimonials.   Thus your blog can double as a book website.
    You can also promote your book to a wider audience by arranging a blog tour.
    A blog tour is a series of scheduled guest appearances on related blogs,
    where you have the opportunity to talk about your book.  This is a
    low cost, high impact method to discover new readers for your work.
    
    Whether you are publishing independently or trying to sign on with a
    traditional publisher, blogging can be key to your success. More publishers
    are now starting to view the blogosphere as a fertile ground to find
    promising writers.  Why?  As an author who blogs, you can quantify your
    audience and this is attractive to risk averse publishers.
    
    Blogging is a low risk, low cost way to build your audience while you are
    developing your work, and then promote your finished book to that same
    audience.  Give it a try!

    (lnformation from Tom Masters, author of Blogging Quick and Easy)

The Weight of Words

                     "But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
                      Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
                      That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 
                         -Lord Byron, English poet, Don Juan, 1819

    History cites the first written language about 3100 BCE in Sumer
    (located in present day Iraq). We have words to live by,
    words to capture your attention, to break your heart, to make your day.
    As a writer, I live with words and am conscious of the impact of words.
    Thoughts are nebulous until the words are realized on paper;
    then the thought becomes viable, something that can be as sharp
    as a razor or as comforting as a blanket. 
    The human heart, fist- shaped, weighs between nine to eleven ounces,
    yet can feel like a two-ton rock sinking to the bottom of the soul; the human brain,
    our complex, neurological computer, weighs on the average about three pounds,
    yet can be as empty as a blank screen.
    It is words that give the human organs weight that cannot be quantified,
    but always qualified. Words have the power to transform lives, heal,
    destroy and shape civilizations. Philosophers, poets, scribes,
    words to instruct the students,all writers throughout history,
    have left us words to live by, to teach children the ways of the tribe,
    even the how-to manuals of our daily lives.
    The power of word is greater than any machine, for a machine may move a mountain
    only if the operator knows how to use it. If the scale records a loss of ten pounds,
    I am ecstatic, light-hearted; but if I have gained, I feel heavy-hearted.
    Love can make me light-headed, but a lover's rejection can lay heavy on my mind.
    The written words of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Christ, Buddha,  Marx, Sarte,
    Lord Byron, Sappho, Coleridge, Neruda, Emily Dickenson, Dostoevsky, Faulkner,
    Ellison, Dickens, to name just a very few great minds, have had immeasurable
    influence on our personal and political lives.
    The Bible, Marx's Communist Manifesto, Machiavelli's The Prince, The Constitution
    of the United States, have changed the course of history and molded civilizations.
    Climbing down that epic ladder onto my own lawn,
    I am painfully aware of how my words affect others. A careless, critical, remark
    can sever a tenuous link between mother and daughter; a sharp rebuke 
    has shattered a friendship, and perhaps most damaging of all is silence,
    the lack of words, the shunning of another, when wordless becomes a brick wall.
    On the opposite side of that is that joyful silence,
    stunned by beauty or an act so full of love that it leaves one speechless.
    My heart can sing, my brain can rhapsodize eloquently,
    or my heart can whisper listen, listen. I save and re-read cards I get all year,
    savoring the kind words of friends and family.
    I understand why people have always kept letters stashed away,
    because one cannot just throw out those precious jewels that are words
    written from one special person to another. Everyday I hope that it is my best I give,
    my words kinder than I may have thought yesterday, just in case 
    someone takes it to heart and carries that careless remark like a stone weight.
    And perhaps, one drop of ink can make me think.

    (by Jacquie Ream -- author of KISS, Forcing the Hand of God, and Bully Dogs)