The Reluctant Blogger

We once spent a summer thinking up naff book titles.  The Hawks of Galaxithi was one of them.  Pollen on my Shoes, another.  It became an obsession.  Any trivial incident could trigger a title.  Shampoo in My Nostrils.  The Blocked Drain. 

Today The Reluctant Blogger jumped into my head as subject heading for this post.
The path to this title, from the opening of my Inbox an hour ago until this moment, is tortuous.  I received an email forwarded by Nicola Davies, who'd been my tutor on the Bath Spa MA creative writing course.  She had put my name on a mailing organised by Goodreads to publicise a book.  This struck me as something worth looking into - sorry, not the book itself but the means of publicising it.  Half of me thinks this is something I should be doing.  A couple of years ago I was doing it on behalf of others writers.  Today I am my own project.   Like a foxhound, I was on a trail which led me through Goodreads and Facebook and Google to the WritersReadersDirect website which I no longer own or manage.  I  arrived, panting, at this blogspot.  I knew I hadn't entered a post for ages but - Reluctant Blogger indeed  - only two posts so far this year.

The question is: why blog at all?  As a writer, isn't it better to write for publication in book form, either in print or as an ebook?  The answer comes: you need to blog to help sell the books you write.

I've looked at the Goodreads instructions for adding widgets to my website.  A familiar feeling of doom has seeped into the depths of my soul.  What is it about publicity that makes me behave like that PushmePullyou animal?  I wonder if it is a congenital abnormality typical of writers.  We need to go out to meet people and get ideas.  We need to retire inwards to let the ideas simmer into stories to write. When out, we long to jump back in.  When in, we long to jump back out. 

Books need their producers to be out and about, shouting their wares.   Nowadays only a very few authors get publishers willing to help with publicity.  We need to do it for ourselves.   Blogging, I believe, is one way.  Linking a blog to Goodreads is good publicity.  But even as I write this post, I shrink. 

I'd love to hear from any writer who shares these feelings.  Meanwhile, let's see if I can add a widget. 

And, by the way, have a look at Take Care, Dear! at http://writersreadersdirect.com