Relationship Building Is Important

Writing is one of those skills exercised in isolation. You curl up with your keyboard and crank some words on the page. You pour your stories and your characters or your research and experiences. It's important to work hard at the craft of writing.

In addition to the writing, it is important to build new relationships and readers. It's a question authors continue to ask about blogging. It's time consuming and is it worth the time or not. I've decided it is worth it for me because of the relationship building part of it. In the March 5th issue of Publishers Weekly they tackle this question in the area of children's books. Sue Corbett writes in part of this article, "Okay, so blogging is not exactly how all writers like to spend their time. But the big question, of course, is, do blogs sell books? On that, everyone agrees that the answer is yes, though no one can point to any numbers, at least not yet. "Saleswise, I'm not necessarily expecting to see a post-for-post, purchase-for-purchase correlation," said Julie Strauss-Gabel, who edits Green at Dutton. "Blogging is a long-term endeavor, one that builds and sustains a loyal fan base over a career."

Cabot says that after she started blogging, visits to her Web site soared. [Sarah] Dessen used her blog to count down the days to her pub date for Just Listen, and readers stormed bookstores looking for their copy. "I had a lot of girls go to stores on the first day and when the book wasn't on display, they had someone go into the back and made them open a box," she recalled. "I really liked hearing that.""

I'm certain this discussion will continue for the days ahead. As for me and my house, I'm going to continue with these entries about the Writing Life.