To Blog or Not To Blog

Last month, one of the authors I worked with asked me if he should start a blog and it took me a couple of days to get back to him with an answer.  In the past, this had been an easy question for me to answer.  I advised all of my authors to start a blog if they hadn’t already started one.  My thinking was that a blog was a great way to keep writing and to develop an audience.  With a blog, writers can find their audience and exercise their unique writing style and voice. But for this particular author, who writes for a middle grade audience, I wasn’t sure if his audience would read his blog and if he wasn’t developing an audience, why should he blog?
I asked myself the same question when I decided to write a blog.  What was it that I had to say?  Would my blog be useful or just another voice added to the infinite noise in the atmosphere?  Ultimately, my answer for myself was the same answer that I gave to this particular author.  Think about what you want to say, reflect on whether or not your advice and your thoughts will be helpful and try it.
For myself, I have committed to writing entries that I hope will inform writers and help them reach an audience with their work.  I may not blog as often as I would like, but hopefully, when I do blog what I say will make a difference.
For the authors that I work with, I notice that each of their blogs is incredibly powerful and unique.  They ponder the world in such a way that you are moved to see it differently yourself.  Marked with humor, profundity, or common sense, their observations are often insightful and always worth reading.  For an author, there is nothing more important than sharing your writing with readers and blogs are a great way to do it.
Read blogs and see what different ways there are to create them.  Do some research to find out how to attract readers to your blog and find out how your blog can be a part of a larger effort to reach out.  Use your blog to find out what your audience is thinking about and what they think of your work.
If you can use www.behinliterary.com to link to the blogs on this website, do it, you will be in for a treat.
Good luck!
Sincerely, Ayanna