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From James Dellow
Blogging Into Book Markets By Richard HoyWhat is a Blog?At a conference in New York City two years back (the first formal conference everon the subject of blogging), panelists at a roundtable discussion were asked theinevitable question: "What is a blog?" A huge argument ensued because no one couldagree on a single definition.While even the experts can't agree on what a blog is, everyone agrees that blogsare fueling something significant.So what is a blog? For purposes of this article, I'm defining a blog as a runningcommentary on a subject, presented in "diary" format, made possible throughspecial software that makes publishing the commentary on the Internet easy andquick.The fastest way to get your brain around the definition above is by seeing someexamples:Instapundithttp://www.instapundit.com/Boing Boing Bloghttp://boingboing.net/Slashdothttp://slashdot.org/These three popular blogs each probably have a readership comparable to that of amid-sized daily newspaper. In fact, Slashdot has so many readers that it can itspawned the "Slashdot Effect". That happens when so many Slashdot readers aretrying at the same time to access a particular Web site mentioned in thepublication that it causes the aforementioned site to crash.These three blogs, and thousands like them, built major readerships with just someclever prose and a little technology - really something anyone, say even anauthor, can do.The Software That Makes Blogging BloggingThere are lots of blogging services as well as software packages out there. Forexample, Salon has a popular blogging service (http://www.salon.com/blogs/), asdoes BlogSpot, now owed by Google, (http://www.blogger.com/start) and TypePad(http://www.typepad.com/)But my personal favorite is WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org/).Our company, BookLocker.com, is a self-publishing services company. We offerindependent authors a cost-effective way to get their books into the marketplace.I installed blogging software on our server and we now offer free blogs toBooklocker.com's POD authors.Real Simple Syndication (RSS)Another important dimension to blogs is Real Simple Syndication, or RSS for short.RSS is a way to format information so it can be easily shared between Web sites.
Essentially, RSS is a special file that contains summaries of the most recentupdates to a Web site. Having these updates out there in a universal format(specifically, a format called XML) means that if a piece of software looks atyour RSS file, it has an instant summary of the most recent information containedwithin your site. The URL to your RSS file is known as the RSS feed. So when youhear of people "pulling a feed" from a site or "updating a feed," it refers to theprocess of accessing or updating the RSS file. Our website, WritersWeekly.com, isavailable in RSS (http://www.writersweekly.com/index.xml) as well as by email eachWednesday.Since the data is in a standard format, sharing that data for use on other Websites becomes a simple exercise. For example, using RSS I can take the last threeentries from one of our author's blogs and automatically put them on his book'ssales page - creating cross-promotion between the two.But probably an even more dramatic example of the power of RSS is Feedster. It isa search engine driven entirely by RSS feeds. Feedster basically monitors all theRSS feeds submitted to it for changes. When Feedster detects a change, it sucksdown the content associated with the change into its database. People can then useFeedster to search this content.RSS was actually around long before blogs. But it wasn't until blogs came alongthat RSS took off. Most blog software and services automatically create an RSSfeed, hence the link between the success of blogs and RSS.The Practical Applications for Authors and PublishersSo let's put it all together and see what blogs and RSS mean for authors andpublishers.An obvious application for authors and publishers is to create their own contentusing blog technology. I can tell you from the tests here at BookLocker that blogsdo sell books. But the trick is that the content has to be well-written andpublished frequently. There is nothing worse that a stale blog. And it often takesseveral months before one can build a significant readership.Some blogs run by BookLocker's authors are:Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinationshttp://blogs.booklocker.com/travel/The Powers That Behttp://dougpowers.blogspot.com/The Portable Writerhttp://freelancewriter.booklocker.com/Warrior Women Inc.http://gladiatrix.booklocker.com/Senior Center Murdershttp://murder.booklocker.com/Another application that isn't so obvious is using RSS to monitor content on otherblogs for opportunities to plug a book. If you go to Feedster and plug in somesearch terms, you'll receive all the blog posts that reference those terms,including the date and time they were first published. Monitoring this on a dailybasis helps you find opportunities to inject your own commentary (many blogs allow
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| Upload Date: | 01/27/2009 |
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