A hot button topic to be sure. 
But one I’ve been considering lately. Certainly my blog is a very popular page on my site, competing only with my message board as the most visited area. Some of the posts garner a flurry of comments and others, not a one. I’ve found links to my blog in the most unexpected of places (right now it appears to be making its way around Germany!! Yay. ) and I’m grateful for everyone who adds my link to their sidebar.
My blog has been a huge marketing tool for me, I think. I know my traffic went up after I started one and I know my publication journey has been a popular topic. My blog was featured in an article in Romantic Times before I was published. Blogging has become an addiction for me. Not being able to blog (like on vacation), drives me a bit batty. 
But I’ve also been fairly vocal about my belief that blogs are not for everyone. Some people are shooting themselves in the foot with their blogs. My personal pet peeve are those blogs that are used only rarely and then only to post a book signing or some other promotional tidbit. That’s not a blog, that’s a “News” page on your site. To call it a blog is false advertising. 
But how do readers feel about blogs?
Obviously, I have a few people who like to read mine and Alison just made her’s her home page, like Jordan. But here’s a thread on the Romance and Friends message board, where readers gripe about blogs being “self-important and obnoxious!”
I admit, I’ve stumbled across a few of those and I agree there are some authors that should keep their personalities separate from their books. But some authors (and I’m not saying I’m one of them. I’m not that self-important! 
) are worth getting to know and I think a blog is a great way to introduce interested readers to the mind that conceived the heroes and heroines they loved!
I blogged on this. *g* Too long for comments!
http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/archives/00000262.html (link added by Sylvia @ 2:31pm)
Glad you blogged about this, because I’ve been thinking about it but have been too annoyed to be less than obnoxious! LOL
What those people don’t realize is that for many authors, blogs are a promotional tool. I’m not published yet, but my readership of my blog goes up every month. For someone who is published, that’s a lot of exposure to their writing they wouldn’t otherwise have.
I have a blog not because I “like to be heard,” but because I enjoy interacting with other bloggers. I think that’s why a lot of people have blogs. It’s a wonderful community where we ENCOURAGE comments. We’re not just preaching and forcing people to listen to us. Yes, there ARE obnoxious, self-important bloggers, and it DOES annoy me when bloggers don’t allow comments, but they are in the minority.
People are MUCH more obnoxious on message boards than they are in blogs (romance blogs, at least,) which is why I tend to stay away from message boards. It’s too easy to get caught up in the snarkage!
Interestingly enough, when I pointed out this post to an author loop I’m one, one author who does NOT blog and has no interest in it at all was totally gobsmacked. (A NYT author, btw.) She was floored that the host of a romance authors site would be so insulting to authors.
I have to say that I love reading author blogs. I’ve *met* some great people through their blogs and I look forward to their next posts. It is great getting a glimpse into what makes the authors of our favorite stories tick! This from the girl who thinks her blog is the most boring of all but yet she continues to post to it because she enjoys it.
I am jaw-dropped. I guess she took issue with a couple of very pointed posts on blogs recently. But doesn’t she sound like a self-righteous bitch? I can hear her sniffing in quite a superior manner. *roll eyes*
I can be just as bitchy: “I don’t like message boards. They seem like a good place for gossip and back-stabbing. There are never sensible analyses of anything, just the same stupid questions over and over and a few people who dominate the boards and trade in-jokes that no visitor cares about.”
Ok, that’s total nonsense, and I don’t believe a word of it, but is it a coincidence that Nancy Berland asks ALL her authors to have a blog? Maybe she just doesn’t know how to install them…
While I think my blog definitly brings traffic to my site, and I hope that it will encourage people to buy my stories, the main reason I’ve learned to love my blog is becasue it’s FUN! I can post silly things, or serious things, and it all helps me to connect. And by connect I don’t just mean with people or other bloggers, but with my muse. Writing on my blog is enjoyable, and puts me in the mood to work on my wip. Usually.
Obviously, most of the people posting in response there aren’t on the cutting edge - or People of the Year, LOL! I’m wondering if it’s only romance blogs that drive these readers batty, or if they’re as incensed by blogs that cover other mediums as well.
Interesting. Only . . . now I’m wondering if I’m self-important and obnoxious . . .