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I read a very interesting blog today by an American author called Toby Neal entitled "Is anyone reading blogs anymore?"

It was about the endless round of author interviews and guest blogs, etc, she did when promoting her first book - now, about to release her second, she wonders if she can be bothered to do it all over again.  Her question was, does anyone actually read them?  Apart from those who know the author, anyway.  My initial answer was 'no'.  My point being that most of them are all the same (some aren't - Tracie Banister's is a bit different, has more interesting questions).  Also, there are hundreds of thousands of bloggers, hundreds and thousands of indie authors out there - yes, your book and what drove you to write it is fascinating to you, your family and some friends, but not of THAT much interest to everyone else.  I highlighted my point by saying that although I had seen Toby's name up and down Twitter for ages, I hadn't actually investigated anything she wrote until she wrote a blog with  a title that caught my eye.  Now I know about her and the name of her book.  Blood Orchid.  See, I even remembered it, an hour later!  I might even check it out!

Hence the title of this blog post.  Did it make you read it?  Well, perhaps not.

Then I thought about the subject more (I do tend to leap in, it has to be said).  Whereas doing an author interview may not get 100 people going "hey, this girl is OUT THERE! I must buy her book, review it and recommend it to all my friends!", it is all a part of the interaction with people and goodwill thing amongst the writer community.  Also, it might get both you and the blogger new followers, who you might really like/start helping each other out....  as another writer had commented on Toby's post, it's a slow thing.

One of the other problems with this blogging thing is that there are so many zillions of them out there that you can miss a good one; I read about 3 a day, I think, ones that particularly catch my eye - if I like a post by someone, I might read another of theirs.  If I like that, too, I might spread the word about the blog as a whole.  Quantum of Thought.  That's a good one.  http://quantumofthought.wordpress.com/  (No, nothing to do with me, it's not a self-plug!)

Before I became part of the Twittersphere I used to post blogs (occasionally) on Facebook and MySpace.  They always got a stack of views and comments, but on Twitter there are so many being posted that they don't stand out.

To sum up - give your blog post a title that will make people look at it!  Maybe not like this one, though...!