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This is an article Shelly wrote for Writers College, Jan. 2005. Links have been added at the bottom of the article, 7/05. The links below are not updated. For current links relevant to blogging, see Blogs and Web Design.

Blog has been cited as the most looked up word on Merriam-Webster's online dictionary for 2004. But what is a blog? The word blog is short for weblog or online diary or journal. What goes into a blog depends on the person doing the writing, aka the blogger. And there are as many permutations of blogging as there are bloggers. The only limit is one's imagination. According to the Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia maintained by the public (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page):

"A weblog, or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage. Such a Web site would typically be accessible to any Internet user. The term "blog" came into common use as a way of avoiding confusion with the term server log. Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs and corporations, and from one occasional author to having large communities of writers. Some are maintained by single authors, while others have multiple authors. Many weblogs allow visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive. The totality of weblogs or blog-related websites is usually called the blogosphere.The format of weblogs varies, from simple bullet lists of hyperlinks, to article summaries with user-provided comments and ratings. Individual weblog entries are almost always date and time-stamped, with the newest post at the top of the page. Because links are so important to weblogs, most blogs have a way of archiving older entries and generating a static address for individual entries; this static link is referred to as a permalink. The latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries, are offered in weblogs in the RSS or Atom XML-format, to be read with a feed reader."

Read the rest of the article here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)

There are many free blogging services, and some that cost. I reviewed a number of such services on one of my blogs: Free Blogging Services: Mini-Reviews (http://cyberchocolate.blogspot.com/2004/11/free-blogging-services-mini-reviews.html).

The one I didn't mention in the above cited post is AOL which allows members to create blogs for free (Keyword: Journals). For newbies, AOL is a great way to learn how to blog. The process is streamlined and a novice blogger can get accustomed to writing on a schedule, seeing how things archive, learn how to insert links without knowing html, and get a good feel for the process. For rookie bloggers who don't have AOL, Blogger (http://blogger.com ) is a good way to go. The templates are easy to work with and if you don't want to customize, including the adding of links, you don't need to know any html. Blogger, now owned by Google, does have well-written help articles that include sample html and is fairly easy to use. Blogger also allows you to edit on Blogger but publish your blog on another site such as your website. All you'd need is a folder on your site to ftp (file transfer protocol) the blog files to.

Other free online blogging services I reviewed or mentioned in my blog entry are: Bravenet (http://www.bravenet.com/), and LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com/) (both of which are online community based), Xanga (http://www.xanga.com/), Blogdrive (http://blogdrive.com/), and Blog-City (http://www.blog-city.com /). Each has its attractions and points of frustation. Libraries have begun blogging about new books in their collections and enhancements to services. Authors have been using blogs to interact with their readers and to keep them informed about their latest writing projects and public appearances and sometimes to offer writing advice. Some incorporate them into their websites while others have just their blog.

A couple of blogs of interest to writers:

** Making Light (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ ): The blog of editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
** S.J. Rozan (http://www.sjrozan.com/ ): Mystery writer Rozan's site has a couple of blogs. One (Progress) follows the publishing process from ms to bookshelves.
** I also have a lot of resources re: blogs and lists of blogs on my website (http://impressbooks.com ), as well as some writer blogs listed on The Write Stuff (http://shellyswritestuff.blogspot.com).

And there are some excellent blogs about books and publishing, such as:
** Blog of a Book Slut (http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ ),
** Book Angst 101 ( http://bookangst.blogspot.com/ ),
** The Literary Saloon (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/index.htm ), and
** Maud Newton (http://maudnewton.com/blog/ ).
Some authors just blog about what interests them.

Neil Gaiman's blog (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp) is a mix of book info and discussions of what matters to him in life. He also encourages reader participation. The real draw of blogs, however, is rss feeds. Blogs are usually syndicated via these feeds so people can have the updates go to them, rather than them having to check for updates every so often. I subscribe to close to 200 blog feeds and get to read the updates in one place. Many of them are writer/publishing/book blogs. RSS (or real simple syndication--it has other names, too) is becoming one of the fastest growing aspects of the net, not just for blogs but for news sites and any other type of site that updates regularly.

People might find your blog via a search engine, but they're likely to keep reading either by checking on their own, when they remember, or more likely (and growing more likely every day) via a news (aka rss) aggregator. I use a free, online aggregator called Bloglines (http://bloglines.com) to read blogs. Other aggregators are software packages you can download to your desktop. Aggregators check the blogs or news sites you subscribe to (Bloglines updates hourly), and brings the information to you in one place so you can see who has updated. The aggregator will show the entire article or post or a summary, depending on how the site or blog has been syndicated. There will also be a link to the actual article on the actual blog. The main attraction to readers is that they get the information pulled into one place, eliminating the time and need to click on blog after blog after blog, looking for new entries or posts.

FeedBlitz (http://feedblitz.com/ ) is a service some blogs use that emails the updates to readers who subscribe.

For more on rss feeds, you can read this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28protocol%29 and the rss directory (http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/directory/22). If you think blogging might be for you, give it a try. But to be an effective blogger and keep readers, you'll need to update regularly. Every day is not necessary, but some sort of schedule is good, ie once a week or every few days. When readers see that they can trust you to maintain your blog with new things of interest to read, you'll grow an audience.

Of course, you'll need to find that audience, or rather, have them find you. There are many ways to do this, some of which involve tweaking the meta data in the html coding to catch the attention of search engines. But you can also add your link to your email and message board signatures, leave comments and your link on blogs similar to yours that interest you, include the link in any of your published writing, talk it up at conferences and/or book signings if you're published, and submit your blog to relevant blog rings and blog directories such as: