To blog or not to blog?In a saturated market, it takes more than a hot concept, great writing, and an appealing cover to ensure a book's success. No wonder, then, that so many authors are trying blogging on for size. After all, a blog (short for "web log") picks up where a standard, static website leaves off. Not only does the blog provide a forum for daily musings, it creates a direct connection between author and audience--the kind of access Holden Caufield would've killed for. Take Sarah Dessen Sarah Dessen is an American writer for young adults, living and teaching in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was born on June 6, 1970 in Illinois, but was raised in North Carolina, where both of her parents were professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which . The award-winning author inspires a following so rabid they've named themselves "Dessen Heads." Luckily for them, Dessen keeps a LiveJournal that she updates every weekday morning. The subject matter is mostly pop culture oriented--everything from her obsession with America's Next Top Model “ANTM” redirects here. For the Australian series, see Australia's Next Top Model. America's Next Top Model (often shortened to Top Model or abbreviated as ANTM to what's loaded on her iPod. "The writing I do on the journal is so different from my novels," Dessen says. "There's less pressure and hardly any expectation, so I can just say whatever I want." Within minutes of posting, Dessen begins to receive comments from some of her more than 900 registered readers (a number excluding countless others who bookmark A stored location for quick retrieval at a later date. Web browsers provide bookmarks that contain the addresses (URLs) of favorite sites. Most electronic references, large text databases and help systems provide bookmarks that mark a location users want to revisit in the future. the site for their daily dose of Dessen). She cites "contact with [her] readers" as the best part of blogging. The success that bloggers like Dessen, Neil Gaiman (Coraline), and Holly Black (Tithe tithe Contribution of a tenth of one's income for religious purposes. The practice of tithing was established in the Hebrew scriptures and was adopted by the Western Christian church. ) have found, coupled with increasingly easy-to-use systems like Blogger, LiveJournal, and TypePad, has inspired even more YA authors to blaze their own blog trails. Other entrants into the world of blogging include Catherine Atkins (Alt Ed), Brent Hartinger (The Order of the Poison Oak poison oak: see poison ivy. poison oak Species of poison ivy (Toxicodendron diversilobum) native to western North America and classified in the sumac (or cashew) family. ), and Lisa Yee Lisa Yee is the author of Millicent Min, Girl Genius (2003), Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time (2005), and So Totally Emily Ebers (2007). External links
Hartinger views his blog as a way of "branding" himself. "[It's] a means to an end," he says. "In this case, the end is to promote my books, and give fans more information about me." For Linda Joy Singleton, blogging delivers "a way to reach fans without actually posting on my own website, which I have to ask my webmaster to do." Singleton, author of The Seer series, maintains blogs on both LiveJournal and Blogger--programs that can be mastered by anyone with a working knowledge of word processing word processing, use of a computer program or a dedicated hardware and software package to write, edit, format, and print a document. Text is most commonly entered using a keyboard similar to a typewriter's, although handwritten input (see pen-based computer) and . HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. skills, while beneficial to the blogger, aren't a necessity. Laurie Stolarz, author of the Blue is for Nightmares Blue is for Nightmares is one of the suspenseful mysteries that Laurie Faria Stolarz wrote for the minds of teens. The plot includes a high school girl named Stacy Brown who began having nightmares about her best friend and roommate, Drea, was going to die. series, receives hundred of fan e-mails each week--and answers every single one. To cut back on this, Stolarz says she'd "like to start pointing my fans to my LiveJournal as a way to keep in touch." E. Lockhart (The Boyfriend List), who uses TypePad for her blog, is a member of the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit, a ring of chick-lit authors who promote each other's books and blogs through "virtual tours Virtual Tours The phrases panoramic tour and virtual tour are often used to describe a variety of video and photographic based media. The word panorama indicates an unbroken view, so essentially, a panorama in that respect could be either a series of photographs or panning video ." Not all authors are sold on the benefits of blogging. Some, like Jeanne DuPrau (The People of Sparks), cite time restraints and a fear that blogging would cut into their writing time. But others, like Marlene Perez (Unexpected Development), say that "if anything, [blogging is] prewriting pre·writ·ing n. The creation and arrangement of ideas preliminary to writing. , so I can then jump in and focus on my [work-in-progress]." One thing most authors agree on is that the blogging craze won't be dying out any time soon. "It's basically free and is a no-brainer way of creating a network of people who share similar interests," says Tanya Lee Stone, author of the forthcoming ABad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl. Holly Black agrees. "[Blogging] is a great way to keep up with one another's lives," she says. "I have made new friends, stayed in touch with old friends, and hopefully entertained my fans." Authors aren't the only ones drawn to blogging; increasingly the Internet is seeing more and more library and school media center blogs. They range from the personal to the "meant for public consumption" variety, cataloging everything from book reviews to resources students can use to write research papers. Not all blogs are created equal. While it's easy for someone new to the medium to create their own blog, sustaining it--and keeping the material interesting for others to read--requires both time and creativity. And according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Cynthia Lord, author of the forthcoming RULES, "The key to the most successful blogs is the interaction. If the blog becomes a dynamic relationship between the writer and the readers, the blog almost takes on a life of its own Memory Burn A Life Of Its Own was released by Noise Kontrol in 2002. Memory Burn is made up of several high profile musicians who came together to create this special work. . In fact, my readers often talk to *each other* on my blog, as well as respond to me." With so many people jumping on the bandwagon--a survey conducted by Perseus Development Group estimated that by the end of 2005, there were more than 53.4 million active blogs--has blogging already reached its tipping point The point in time in which a technology, procedure, service or philosophy has reached critical mass and becomes mainstream. See network effect. See also tip and ring. ? No, says D. L. Garfinkle, author of Storky: How I Lost My Nickname "My Nickname" is the 10th episode of the American situation comedy Scrubs. It originally aired as Episode 10 of Season 1 on November 27, 2001. Plot J.D.'s relationship with Carla becomes strained, as his medical knowledge begins to surpass hers. Turk and Dr. and Won the Girl. "I believe that blogging will get more popular as people get more computer literate," she says. Hartinger disagrees. "I totally think this trend will die out soon," he says. "Too much of blogging focuses on the minutiae mi·nu·ti·a n. pl. mi·nu·ti·ae A small or trivial detail: "the minutiae of experimental and mathematical procedure" Frederick Turner. of life, and that makes me think that people are fascinated with the gimmick, not the content." "On the other hand," he continues, "I predicted Whitney Houston would be a complete flash in the pan and that Cyndi Lauper would rule the charts for decades to come, so what do I know?" Lara M. Zeises is the author of Bringing Up the Bones and Contents Under Pressure. Her latest novel, Anyone But You, was published in November 2005 and named a Top 10 Pick by Teen People magazine. Lara is avid blogger; not only does she maintain her personal blog (www.livejournal.com/ users/zeisgeist), she moderates a LiveJournal community that catalogues the blog addresses of YA authors and advocates (http://www.livejournal.com/community/ yawriterblogs/.) Additionally, Lara conducts blogging workshops for librarians, teachers, authors and teens. Blog site information: Sarah Dessen--www.livejournal.com/users/writergrl Neil Gaiman--http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp Holly Black--www.livejournal.com/users/blackholly Catherine Atkins--www.livejournal.com/users/cawriter Brent Hartinger--www.livejournal.com/users/brentsbrain Lisa Yee--www.livejournal.com/users/lisayee Linda Joy Singleton--http://lindajoysingleton.blogspot.com/; www.livejournal.com/users/ljsingleton ; www.livejournal.com/users/lindajsingleton Laurie Stolarz--www.livejournal.com/users/lstolarz E. Lockhart--http://www.theboyfriendlist.comlelockhart_blog/ Marlene Perez--www.livejournal.com/users/marperez Tanya Lee Stone--www.livejournal.com/users/tanyaleestone Cynthia Lord--http://www.livejournal.comluserslcynthialord/ D.L. Garfinkle--http://www.livejournal.comlusers/dlgarfinklel |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion