Sunday, September 13, 2009

Offering to share versus Shameless Self-Promotion

In my last post I sort of stumbled over the "what is this blog for" issue again. I need to revisit that.

My purpose in creating a Fictional Life was to promote my fiction writing. Initially, I tried posting some of my writing here. Frankly, I don't think a blog format is conducive to long posts. It is particularly not conducive to trying to publish chapters that should be read in order, because everything comes out backwards. Therefore, I created a website for the purpose of specifically promoting my novels. I am posting synopses, character sketches and sample chapters there. I'm still working on how the website and this blog can relate to one another.

That raises the question as to whether or not I even want to continue with this blog. I think I do because its (a) I'm starting to pick up traffic, (b) I'm comfortable with the software and (c) the alternate purpose for the blog was to write about my writing journey itself. That's something I'm doing for myself, and I suppose I could keep it to myself, but it is possible that someone else might be interested in it and/or learn something from it. I have taken great consolation in reading blogs by other writers and discovering that my woes are shared widely. If I can add my voice to that chorus and give somebody encouragement to go back and face the blank screen again, then it's worth the time I spend blathering here.

However it is still primarily a marketing tool. I just don't want it to be too annoying....

LATER THAT SAME DAY

(laughing) I decided to ponder the issue of the annoyance of too-much-marketing by randomly link-hopping around the blogosphere as I like to do when I'm chewing on an issue. Synchronicity happens! About three minutes into my surfing, I ran across this post by Fiona Robyn. I'm still pondering my next steps, but I know she's absolutely right. My problem is, I just hate the self-promotion part.

Meredith

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