Three great reasons for book authors to blog

It's pretty much a given that a blog is a great tool for authors -- as self-promotion, or in building buzz and publicity for their books. Here's three more good practical reasons for blogging:

Blogging generates more content for you.

Whether you're responding to e-mail questions from readers or simply commenting on the issue of the day, writing regular short blog posts generates automatic content for your future books, or for updating your existing books.

For example, I get e-mails every day from people who've found my e-mail address on my blog or in my book. I answer each message promptly, and this writing inspires great content for my blog. I reproduce the e-mail exchange as a question/answer on my blog, which is easy to write, and fun to read (when done well). I rewrite the original question for clarity and brevity, and I don't include any information that would identify or embarrass the questioner.

Blogging builds a feedback loop

Your blog readers will pepper you with comments and e-mails, providing a clear window into the thinking of people involved with your blog topic. You can analyze the results by viewing logs of which Web posts are read most often. You'll know exactly where you've hit a nerve, and which of your posts fell flat. (To see where the action is on your blog, I'd recommend MyBlogLog, which provides you with a daily list of which of your posts is read most often, and which links on your site get the most clicks). Two other great free tools for tracking your site are StatCounter and Google Analytics. The Google tool provides the most details, but you have to wait a while to see the data, the other services are real-time.

Blogging is simple.

Every author knows they need a Web site. Why not make it one that's interactive and easy -- a blog? Some of the best content on my blogs comes directly from the energy of my readers. If you want a blog with an involved readership, allow readers to post comments. Even if you receive only a few per week, can make your Web site appear as if it's a heavily trafficked, popular place. By contrast, if you operated a forum or message board on your Web site, you could have hundreds of visitors per week and it would still appear as if little was happening. Host a forum on your Web site only if you have many thousands of active readers each week.

This is not to say you should allow any type of comments on your blog. I "moderate" my blog comments, meaning that I must approve each message before it's actually posted on my site. The vast majority of comments I receive are relevant and well-written, but there are occasional nonsensical or spam comments, which I like to delete before they appear on my site.

You can reduce the program of spam blog comments by using "word verification," if your blog software includes it. This way, users must retype the characters they see in an image before their comment is forwarded. This prevents software-generated spam comments.

Above all, you should remember to blog early and blog often. One of the big advantages of blogs is that search engines believe they have "fresh" content that changes frequently, and thus blogs rank highly in search engine results. Ensure the freshness of your blog by posting at least a few times each week.