Do you read any author’s blogs? If so, are you looking for information on their next project? On the author personally? Something else?
Whether it’s because I’m an aspiring writer, or whether I’m simply nosy, I do enjoy reading my favorite author’s websites/blogs. My interest is mostly personal, really, for I love knowing little bits about people – their interests and hobbies, their pets, even their daily routines right down to their favorite coffee shops or styles of music. For instance, Sandi Khan Shelton, ( whose latest novel Kissing Games of the World was on my top 10 list of favorite reads for 2008) has been working feverishly to meet her publisher’s deadline on novel number four . Her posts from the “big chair in the corner” of her office at Starbucks are a fun insight into her writing process, and one I’ll probably recall fondly when I’m holding that novel in my hot little hands!
Of course, author webpages are much different than author blogs, which invite commentary and give us the ability to actually communicate on a personal level. I treasure my exchanges with authors like Sandi, and Beth Kephart, whose blogs I read on a regular basis ~ their impressions provide so much insight about the way writers look at the world. So they inspire me to see things differently and record my thoughts in new ways.
Now…I’m thinking about the author’s perspective on this question…I imagine having a blog is a wonderful avenue for enticing new readers as well as keeping in touch with loyal fans.
Am I right?
Author? Author? Tell me please…
Bookstack 
To be honest, I have never even investigated my favorite authors to find out if they have a blog. I have left comments at a few in my blog travels, but I have not thought about looking up particular authors. Maybe I should go check that out! Thanks for the idea.
I have 2 author blogs with different purposes. A Novelist’s Mind is a blog where I write about whatever interests me. I have a lot of interests! Art, politics, science, religion, psychology and especially history. The blog is a place I can share information from my own research for my novels or interesting things that I come across and express my take on it. I love this blog because I can recapture my love of writing and my curiosity about life without the pressures of publishing and marketing. I love when readers comment. It’s a direct interaction that doesn’t happen, for the most part, with books. My other blog is Q & A with Lilian Nattel. That’s a place where I answer reader’s questions and post book reviews. It’s intended as an adjunct to my website, which is currently being revised. I don’t write a lot about my everyday life for a couple of reasons. One is my children’s privacy. As a writer, I am blogging under my real name so I don’t have the advantage of anonymity that other bloggers who write journal type blogs do. The other reason is that I write the kind of thing I enjoy reading, something that leaves me knowing more than I did before I read the blog. For example my post on Dr. Daniel Williams (“An African-American Pioneer in Medicine”). From time to time, when driven!, I do write about my personal life. (“Computer Woes” and “Update Computer Woes”).
I like both author websites and blogs.
Authors Talking
This week’s question unearths the truth that I do not have many favorite authors. Most of the authors whose works I continue to re-read and explore are dead. I have favorite books. The books have to speak for themselves.
It’s an interesting question this one. So far, with the exception of Susan Hill, I haven’t seen the same name twice (and apparently her blog recently closed). I do read Lilian’s though, and enjoy it very much.
Oh, you are very sweet to include me here. I blog because it connects me to the world, and because I yearn, every day, to make sense of things, and because the blog gives me a venue for my photography, which has become as important to me as my words.
I get turned off by author blogs that feel excessively salesy. I like to think instead about sharing and celebrating the things that move me or matter to me. Sometimes that can in fact be a bit of good publishing news. But most of the time the goodness I am celebrating comes straight out of everyday life, and out of the process of trying to make things (as opposed to sell them).
Like you, I love Sandi Kahn Shelton’s blog. She’s so real… (And now I will have to check out Beth’s as well!) I think reading an author’s blog makes them become a bit more tangible to their audience. It’s also great to read about their process in creating the books we love so much. 🙂