Need Inspiration? Check These Journalist and Author Blogs

To prepare for a recent talk for my local PWAC chapter on why writers should care about blogging, I dug around to see how other writers, journalists, and authors approach blogging. I found that some authors use their blogs to aggressively promote books sales or to publicize their freelance writing services and other activities. Others use their corner of the Internet to create dialogue, promote columns and articles, and build relationships with readers. Here are a few examples, along with sources of more blogs by authors and writers (as opposed to blogs about writing).

• Greg Bear
  Hugo and Nebula award winner science fiction author Greg Bear seems to enjoy using his blog to converse with his readers.


• Daisy Dexter Dobbs
  Romance author Daisy Dexter Dobbs is a prolific blogger who enjoys interacting with readers. Her blog is also a good source of other writer blogs.


• Lynn Viehl
  Viehl uses her blog to sell current books and to promote upcoming titles. Great source of links, though Viehl could tell us more about herself.


• Seth Godin
  Well-known tech pundit Seth Godin uses his blog to promote sales of his various books. He has a blog, All Marketers Are Liars, devoted exclusively to his upcoming book by the same name.


• Tess Gerritsen
  Medial thriller writer Tess Gerritsen uses her blog for self branding purposes. In one post, she admits she still struggles to overcome the label "romance writer" and laments the pigeonholing created by labels in general.


• Crawford Killian
  There is perhaps no more prolific blogger than author and web writing guru Crawford Killian. He maintains no less than ten blogs, all of which are accessible from the one linked here. He uses his blogs to promote his books and provides an excellent collection of writing-related links. His blog, Ask the English Teacher, is a good source of links and information on grammar and web writing.


• Terry Glavin
  Author and journalist Terry Glavin uses his blog to promote his books, columns, and essays.


• Colby Cosh
  Canadian sports columnist Colby Cosh claims his blog has been visited more than one million times since its advent in 2002. It features odd headlines from around the world and an interesting blogroll highlighting Canadian journalists and bloggers.

More Blogs By Writers, Authors, & Journalists

• The Author's Dilemma: To Blog or Not To Blog
• Authors' Blogs (massive alphabetical list)
• Cyber-Journalist Blog List (scroll down for independent journalist blogs)
• The Writer's Life List of Writers' Blogs

PWACers who want to get started blogging will find links to everything you need in this blog or on WebLens' blogging tools page. Just explore the categories at left above, or type the term you want to know about (RSS or social bookmarking, for example) into the search field above to pull up posts on that topic. If you'd like a presentation on blogging for your PWAC chapter or writers' group, please contact me through the comments feature on this post.