A list of the best blogs for writers in 2012 is going around. Writer’s Market editor Robert Lee Brewer compiles about 40 great blogs for writers to follow. It’s a great list. But sadly, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I say sadly not just because I’m one of the plethora of writing blogs out there (although I don’t talk exclusively about writing here), but because of the effect that so many “writing sources” have upon authors and aspiring authors.
Writing blogs potentially insulate writers from their real audience: Readers.
To illustrate how this could be possible, read this excerpt from J.A. Konrath in The Value of Publicity:
Here’s the deal: Readers are my customers, not writers. Readers don’t even know who the Big 6 are. They don’t care.
I’m mentioned a lot in the publishing community, which is small, closed, and uninteresting to anyone who isn’t in it. But because we’re in it, and we care about it, we incorrectly assume that because writers know who I am, readers must as well. (emphasis mine)
So while critique groups, writing blogs, writing discussions, and the publishing community often consume much of a writer’s attention, they can potentially mislead us into thinking we’re connecting with our audience. Of course, fellow writers CAN be part of our audience. But we’re mistaken to think that buzz about us inside the writing community equates to buzz outside the writing community, where it really matters.
That’s how the writing community potentially insulates writers.
So while we debate “who the Big 6 are,” our real audience doesn’t care. We get lost in feverish discussions about self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, but our potential readers couldn’t give a rip. We argue “the rules,” but the general public has no idea what rules we’re talking about. We strive to make a name for ourselves in the publishing community, but “because we’re in it, and we care about it, we incorrectly assume that because writers know who I am, readers must as well.”
Last year I read The Silent Land by Graham Joyce. The reader part of me enjoyed the book. The premise was simple, compelling, and made me want to finish. The writer part of me thought the prose was inconsistent and often clunky. In the end, I felt the book was okay.
Nevertheless, it helped me realize a very important truth: Unlike writers, readers have only “one part” to satisfy. What I mean by that is, Writers must wrestle with the technical details of a story while trying to enjoy it. Readers only want to enjoy it. To lose sight of this dynamic is to lose sight of our ultimate aim.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a writer. We can debate it if you like. But please understand this: Your readers don’t give a damn about who wins our debate.
So, should we split our social media sites to address individual audiences like readers and writers? The New Authors Fellowship just did that with their Cheesecake Thickens blog focusing solely on readers. I’m wondering if I should keep my main site book reviews and literature discussion and post my writing advice on a separate blog.
Tim, I recently spoke to another author who’s part of a popular website who expressed the same dillema. Their site (at least the comments on their site) seems to attract far more writers than readers. They’re recognizing a need to engage more pure readers and are working through potential changes. Places where we can learn from and interact with other writers are fine. We just can’t be deceived into thinking that’s our audience.
Excellent insight and advice, Mike.
You just unintentionally made my point for “the average reader”, Mike. And, no, I don’t want to “debate” it again. 😉
I know you’d love to THINK I was making your point, Nicole, but I’m nowhere near it. My point is about not being so caught up in “insider trading,” that I miss my real audience. And the truth is my “average reader” will be a lot different than someone else’s.
True that your “average readers” will be different in many respects than those who enjoy other genres, but an average reader is typified in this statement: “What I mean by that is, Writers must wrestle with the technical details of a story while trying to enjoy it. Readers only want to enjoy it. To lose sight of this dynamic is to lose sight of our ultimate aim.”
I thought you didn’t want to debate this, Nicole.
This is why I don’t see the point to blogging. The only people who follow my blog are other writers. It isn’t that I don’t want to engage my readers. I want to. I just don’t know how to be relevant to them in a non-fiction forum.
You know your audience here is writers. That’s great. You have plenty to say to them and you’re always engaging. But often the type of people who read fiction (especially speculative genres) are NOT the type of people who read blogs or newsletters. How DO you engage this elusive audience?
Caprice, even if your blog only attracts other writers, those writers could a.) be part of your market and b.) potentially lead you to other readers. I can’t agree that speculative readers don’t read blogs or that that audience is “elusive.” At all. Konrath’s advice is to market almost exclusively through Amazon, crank out good books with good covers, often, and sell them cheap.
Most of the people who read my blog (I’ve got about 350 regular readers and then others come and go) are spec fic readers. In fact I’m back to reading spec fic because of my blog readers.
Oh, I definitely assume writers ARE a part of my market. A large part, in fact. But that’s kind of the problem: attracting non-writer, non-family, previously-strangers READERS.
It kinda sounds like Konrath is helping make my point because that advice list (which sounds logical and reasonable) does not include “Set up a page on Facebook and beg people to “like” it.” or “Blog weekly about your pet peeves” or “Go land interviews with other writers” etc, etc. Of course, you may just not have quoted where he he did say such things. I probably need to read Konrath’s book myself.
Oh, and I didn’t mean audience was elusive to YOU. You obviously have no problems with that. My bad.
1) Are you schizophrenic? Or perhaps you are actually an analytical person who isn’t split between a reader and writer.
2) This is why I don’t write about writing on my blog. I don’t want to be a painter painting myself painting.
I must be weird. I looking at other people’s recursive self portraits.
This is why my blog is not–and has never been–a Writing Blog or a Book Blog, even though I will talk about those things on occasion.
1. People who only talk about one topic at a party are boring
2. I’m interested in more than just one topic
3. Being a writer is weird enough without talking about it all the time
4. Talking about writing for me is like talking about sex. Something gets lost in the translation from life to page.
I realised yesterday during the discussion (and initially last week during the discussion then about writing rules) that I don’t care about the rules enough to treat them like a sacred mantra.
And with all due respect, a lot of readers read my blog; especially spec fic readers.
Katherine, I get bored writing about the same topic all the time. Some suggest it’s hard to build blog readership if you’re topically all over the map. I dunno. Without some diversity, I’d probably cave in. Not to mention, I don’t think I know enough to write about writing all the time.
Excellent point. This is something I’ve been wrassling with as I’m trying to expand my marketing.
Fellow writers are a wonderful support group, and I know that the bulk of my first sales were to friends and fans I met through writer’s forums. The name we make for ourselves in our writer’s communities does matter. But our ultimate audience needs to be bigger than just our fellow writers.
I know it doesn’t matter — but: “Brilliant.”
I’m with you Mike. One of the reasons I wrote a blog (http://blog.rlcopple.com/?p=446) based off Dean Wesley Smith’s “Dare to be bad” in that what readers want most is simply a compelling story. The rules are nothing more than guides on how to write a compelling story. So if you break some rules but do tell a compelling story, readers are not going to care that much. They want a good story, and what rules a writer had to follow to get there is of no concern to them.
But writers tend to be harder critics. And is why I laugh when someone tries to tell me what readers will not read or what will destroy a story for them. It may for writers, but may not for non-writer readers.
People who claim that blogs about diverse topics can’t be popular have never dipped a toe into Pioneer Woman’s blog. She blogs about her life on the ranch, cooking, photography, homeschooling, and oddball entertainment media. All diverse topics, and she gets hundreds or thousands of comments per post. She’s been around for five or six years to build up to that, and has some books published as well as a cooking show on Food Network. But she was famous “on teh internets” before she got famous “in real life”. 🙂
Sorry Mike but we’re going to agree whether either of us likes it or not 🙂 Readers (who are not writers) simply don’t care about the same things writers (who are also readers) care about.
Your main point was never bettered illustrated to me about my own site and many other writers’ sites including this one than by this conversation with an “average reader” friend at church. She told me how much she enjoyed my site to which I encouraged her to leave a comment.
“Oh those other people,” she replied, “know so much more than me. I love to read but don’t feel like I have much to say compared to you are them.”
This woman is a dear friend who converses freely with me in real life, has a reading family like you wouldn’t believe, but doesn’t feel she has anything to add to the conversation. So while I and my writer friends are busy talking to and arguing with each other the one person who will probably read my books, once published, feels left out. Too bad.
The average reader may not care that I wrote “are” when I mean to write “or” but I do. Sorry about that.
Tim, this post is NOT about what an “average reader” is. So I find it interesting that both you and Nicole would choose to highlight that reference. As you know, I have suspicions as to why this is important to both of you. While we may agree that readers are not as concerned about craft as writers, I believe we disagree about the importance of craft overall.
I really don’t believe in sparring matches via the web so this will be brief.
You are free to find interesting whatever you like as am I. I found it interesting you used a term like “average reader” when I was pretty well panned a while back for believing there is such a thing. What I find more interesting is how you have suspicions about what matters to me while I have none about what matters to you.
I read your blog every day. And, I have left some pretty positive comments over the last week. In the last two blogs posts of yours I sensed we probably want the same thing and maybe there was bit of the meeting of the minds. Now it isn’t me that keyed on one phrase, “average reader”. Look at my original post again: the vast body of my comment was agreeing with you that we may be missing our intended audience as writers.
Now as a disclaimer to your followers because MORE than one of them visits my site from time to time. I can’t speak to how important the craft of writing is to anyone but myself. And trust, me, I have the battle scars to prove what good writing means to me.
Tim, as far as a “meeting of the minds” goes, I don’t recall ever saying that writers DON’T judge books different than readers. So I’m not sure what we’re now supposed to be agreeing on. You might want to go back and re-read my post “Why Writers Make Great Reviewers” in which I concede that writers CAN allow infatuation w/ technicalities to hinder their appreciation of story. (And note: you and Nicole tangled with me on that post as well.)
The term “average reader” is being used here as if it were a “gotcha.” But if we compared notes about what an “average reader” is, I suspect our minds would not meet. So it’s a little unfair to use it without defining terms. I used it here simply to describe the general public who are not writers. That’s it.
Peace.
Honestly I am mystified by where this conversation has gone. You and Nicole used the term “average reader” in this post long before me. When I made a stupid typo and left a follow up comment to correct it you latched on to me using the same term as though it was some kind of premeditated gotcha.
All I can say at this point is good grief! Your definition of average reader is the same as mine – “the general public who are not writers”. So if our minds are not meeting now there is no hope for it to ever happen since we cannot agree that 1=1.
As to importance of craft the only implication from your comment can be that one of us values craft in writing more than the other. Now – debate in this forum must end at some point. I was really trying to agree with the basic premise of this post but apparently we don’t speak the same language.
Ya gotta love it! Tim, you DID use the phrase “average reader” in your initial post as well as the typo correction. In fact, I initally thought your comment was in response to Nicole’s since you two are the only commenters here besides me who’ve used that term. Frankly, this all goes back to our ongoing debate about Subjectivity, the demarcation between good and bad writing, and how much writers should worry over “good” writing. I think we still disagree about a lot of that stuff. As I’ve said before, I think the term “average reader” CAN be used to describe the lowest common denominator of readers, ones who can’t tell the difference between good and bad craft, and frankly don’t care. Tim, I think we still disagree about these things. What other reason would you (or Nicole) be hoping for a “meeting of the minds”? Anyway, if I’ve come across too sharp, I ask your forgiveness.
You are right I used the term at 9:05 AM on February 9 about two hours after first Nicolle and then you used the term. In a spirit of fairness I and I only mentioned a meeting of the minds. My intent by that statement was to indicate I felt like we hold more in common that it might appear to others from our conversations. My desire is to find common ground in any discussion and work from there. I thought maybe WE were nearing that point in this discussion. Guess I was foolishly mistaken.
I am not nearly so thin skinned or immature as to need you to apologize for making the following statement: I believe we disagree about the importance of craft overall. However, unless corrected, I feel reasonably sure of what its implication is.
Life is too short and there’s too much for either of us to do to continue what isn’t a debate for me. I believe firmly in approaching writing as a serious matter, a craft to be mastered or to be mastered by, and a pursuit that will never realize perfection. The end.
Mike: “I believe we disagree about the importance of craft overall.”
Tim: “…unless corrected, I feel reasonably sure of what [that statement’s] implication is. ”
Then I want to make sure I correct that, Tim, as it seems to be the sticking point. As I’ve said before, I believe arguing for “subjectivity” lowers the bar and diminishes the need for writers and reviewers to discuss “quality craft.” I believe you and I disagree on this. That’s my only implication. I have not read any of your fiction, and by the looks of your posts and essays, you are a fine writer, Tim. So please don’t take this as a slam against your craft, because it’s not. OK?
This is how people who desire truth can find their way to common ground. And, what I meant about a meeting of them minds. It is a mistake to think I am arguing for subjectivity. All I am doing is observing a reality, whether either of us likes it or not. The majority of readers (hence my term average) short-circuit when we insiders begin to discuss and critique the nuances of craft.
That is why I ultimately chose to avoid trying to replicate Goodreads or even Amazon in my “reviews”. There is a much needed place for detailed critiques that examine the literary value of works of fiction. That place just isn’t my site. The comment by a friend I mentioned confirmed the direction I am taking on my blog. I want to connect with people who simply love to read and with people who should love to read. I don’t want them shying away from joining the conversation because they feel too “average” to be a part.
On the flip side, that is why I joined C.L. Dyck and a number of fine writers to launch a literary quarterly at Scita > Scienda. That will be my place to review and interview writers for people who are looking for something more. The “average reader” I mentioned earlier bought the first quarterly for her NOOK. She told me she read as much of it as she could and then smiled and changed the subject. I knew she wasn’t one of those people that wants to know how a car works; she just wants to turn the key and drive.