Once You Start Blogging

Once you start blogging, it's hard to stop. Okay, that's what I think, especially because I've been sitting on so much material for so long and now I've decided I'm just going to go ahead and blog it out there.

I wrote my first book, Waterfront Property, in 2003. Since then I've written two more novels and have started about a half-dozen non-fiction books. The trouble is ... well, I can make lots of excuses but I suppose it all boils down to fear of failure or something like that. I haven't been able to believe in myself and my work enough to want to send out all of those query letters and face all of that rejection again.

Last week, my friend, Conny, got me going on a blogging rant. So in addition to blogging as the Williamsburg Wordpecker, now I've decided to start putting a lot of my backlog of written work online in blog format too. If you happen to surf over to any of my book blogs and you like them, I'd appreciate your supporting my advertisers with your clicks on their links. You see, this is a way to monetize my work for now. It brings in pennies, but that's more than this material was bringing in from its spot on my hard drive and in my file cabinet.

Hey, and maybe a literary agent will find it and like it and contact me! But then, traditional publishing is a hard business to be in these days. Paper and ink books aren't doing so well. After all, too many people are doing their reading online! And as far as I know, the new business model for online books is still in the works.

I suppose some would be worried about someone taking their written work if they just "put it out there" in cyberspace. But since I've actually published five books now I'm not too concerned. I know from experience that writing won't make you rich ... unless it's really, really good or Oprah discovers you. There are better ways to make easy money. Even the not so easy ways to make money can be more lucrative.

So, here we are. Take a look at my revised edition of Waterfront Property or curl up with your digital device and read Driving Around the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Let me know what you think. And don't forget the advertisers. They're waiting for your clicks (and so am I).