I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago so some of the information is a little bit outdated... but I decided that I liked it so now I'm posting it. :)
I had the scariest dream EVER the other night... I was dreaming that I went into the living room late at night to get a book from the bookshelf where we keep the library books that we get out, and my library books WEREN'T THERE. And I was like, OH NO I took all the library books back and I WASN'T DONE ALL OF THEM!!!! And there were some really good books in there that I wanted to read, too!! What a nightmare... thankfully, I woke up, and all my library books were still there. YAY!
OK, anyways... my book-related nightmares are not the subject of this post. Actually, I wanted to talk about a question that YA author Elana Johnson asked last week . She was talking about all her online acheivements when she asked: would you be less impressed?
The pressing question is this: Would you be less impressed? I honestly want to know. In this wide world of blogging, have we allowed ourselves to get carried away? Have we somehow deluded ourselves that our blog matters? That we can't write good books without blogging? That people will be disappointed in an author if they don't have a blog/Facebook/twitter?
Are we less impressed by the author who doesn't have an online presence?So I think somehow this is backwards... if anything, why would I be impressed by an author's online presence? An author is not a blogger, nor a Facebooker, nor a twitterer. An author is someone who writes books. If anything, I should be impressed by the author's writing.
Before I joined the online writing community, I had absolutely no idea so many authors had blogs and websites and such. I read books, I read LOTS of books. And if I so happened to fall in love with a book, then I would want to devour everything I could about that book, or more. If that meant scouring the earth for another book by the same author, so be it (uh... actually, I still do this...) and usually I would do this by looking at an author's website, but pretty much the only thing I would click there is the "BOOKS" link, and then subsequently put all the books available by the author in my library on hold. To be honest, the author as a person didn't really matter to me - just the author as a writer.
If an author wants to impress me, they should put all their efforts into practising writing, honing their craft, trying to be the best they can be so their writing shines and when I'm done their book I sit back and go "ahhhh" in contentment.
I have an example for you... so, I read these books by this author, Megan Whalen Turner. The books were The Thief, Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia. I was seriously blown away by this woman's ability. Her writing was so clever and amazing and surprising and utterly perfect my jaw was dropped in awe after each new book in the series. I didn't find her online. Even after I read her books, I didn't find that she had much of an online presence. Was I less impressed? No, because that's not what mattered.
I think I shall use math to make my point:
Loving book leads to finding online presence > online presence leads to picking up book
I know there are lot of people who are online and find books that way (honestly I add more books to my TBR list from review blogs than books of authors whose blogs I follow) but there are a lot of people who find books other ways, too.
So, to answer the question: "would I be less impressed" the answer would be, I wouldn't even care if I never saw you online. As long as you give me a good book to read. ;)
What do you think? Would you be less impressed?
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