Blog Migration and Breaking the Rules

* I just moved my blog over to Blog*Spot since the old version wasn't working out, so all of the initial posts have the same date. *

As I was reposting old content, I noticed an interesting entry on Mary Kole's blog (Kidlit). The title read, "Do Unpublished Writers Have to Blog?"

Although I have been published, I have not yet published a children's book. Shall we see what rules I've broken? The two sides of my brain war over this - one half says only a fool points out their own errors; the other half reminds me of the reason I started this blog: To learn and to help others learn about the industry of writing for children. Guess which side won.

Here's an excerpt of Mary's question/discussion:
"This is a question that comes up a lot at conferences and from people who email me. It’s the familiar scenario: You’re an unpublished writer chasing publication. You don’t have a book or a deal to blog about yet, but you’ve heard that writers need platform and Internet presence, and you’ve heard that blogs get you friends and traffic and riches and unicorns, and you’ve also heard about this Twitter thing. Yet it sounds overwhelming. And you wonder if you have enough to blog about. You wonder if you have the time to keep up with all these things.

But the online writing community you see other unpublished writers enjoying keeps bugging you — You have to blog! You have to Tweet! You have to Facebook!

What do you do?"

Her response is a relief to bloggers like me - someone who has occasional thoughts worth sharing, but who isn't (and doesn't want to be) Facebooking or Twittering daily:
"If you’re iffy on blogging and worry, already, that you’ll run out of material, I say don’t do it. There are too many bad blogs, blogs about people’s cats (I swore I would never blog about my cat…then she got sick and I freaked out and I blogged…at every conference I attend, people still ask me about my cat!), blogs about their word count for the day and what book they’re reading, blogs by people who think they need a blog. Don’t add one more to the pile. Blogs without good, useful information or blogs by a clearly reluctant author are the worst."

Whew. So there isn't a need for me to be posting daily (or hourly as some people seem able to do), thank goodness. Of course, in the same paragraph, I see I've broken at least one rule - I do have a side post that lists what I'm reading.

I think you can get a sense of people by seeing which books they choose to read. For me personally, I love to know what others are reading. Especially agents and editors. So much of my research on the people in this industry is done online and through short blurbs in Market Guides. Attending conferences is the best way to get to know people, but most of the time you only get to see/meet a handful of editors and/or agents. And yet, we (writers) are supposed to target those who most resonate with us. How do we do that if all we get is "Agent Wonderful: Accepts PB, MG, YA. Query with synopsis and first 10 pages."?

Luckily, with enough digging we can find out editor and/or agent tastes by studying what books they represent or work on (sometimes, anyway). But, Ms. Kole's talking about unpublished writers. Does it matter what unpublished writers are reading? I think it should, and here's why:

1. If an editor or agent is on the fence about working with an author, s/he can get a sense of the writer by seeing what books are being read, or what books the author wants the editor or agent to think s/he is reading. Either way, you get a sense of the person.

2. It gives other writers and illustrators a sense of who the author is. Is it a person I'd like to bump into at a conference? Is it someone who shares similar goals? Does the person have similar likes & dislikes?

Ouch. This next bit hurts a little, although I believe it to be true:
"The reason why I’m so negative about unpublished writers blogging and Tweeting is that it’s usually not good content. " She goes on to explain that people go to the internet to get valuable information, and that unpublished authors tend to blog about themselves and their writing. While this works well to create a sense of community among unpublished writers, it'll only attract other unpublished writers.

While I do try to limit my posts to deal directly with writing, I do imagine my audience to be other unpublished writers. I use this blog to pose questions, and hope to generate responses so that we, as a community, can learn together. Hopefully as my knowledge base grows, so will the value of this blog.

Thanks, Mary Kole, for the interesting blog post [and blog in general]. If you haven't already, be sure to check out Mary's blog - it's full of great information for (unpublished) writers.