The Spectacle Wraps Things Up

The Spectacle, a blog maintained by a group of middle grade and YA writers of science fiction and fantasy, announced yesterday that it is calling it a day. "...the original group of posters agreed to keep it going for 843 days exactly." Yesterday was Day 843.

I think creating a short-term blog (not that 843 days is a short period of time--it's just not open-ended) is a fantastic idea for people who have in mind a particular project or topic they want to research and write about. If I had a better grasp of time, I'd try it. But I don't, so don't hold your breath expecting me to do one.

As usual, I am more than a month behind with my blog reader, so I am rushing back to read all The Spectacle posts from around April 21 so I can wrap things up with them. In preparation for their end times, the bloggers were interviewing each other.

I found Parker Peevyhouse's chat with Joni Sensel particularly interesting because they talked about Joni's plans to publish a POD and e-book this fall. Then they got into how useful blogs and being part of on-line writing communities are for assisting writers in promoting themselves. Parker says, "I would say it has built up support, but has it “made” writers’ careers?...The blogging is fun, and I like chatting with commenters. I don’t know that it did a lot to increase book sales for our bloggers. So the real value is getting to talk about stuff we like to talk about!" Joni later says, "I’ve seen several not-very-scientific studies that suggest the same thing–blogging and social networking are fun but probably don’t sell books."

I have to say that everything I've read on the subject agrees with Joni and Parker's impression. I've never heard of any documentation that actually proves that an Internet platform by way of...anything, actually...helps sell books. And, yet, I am here.

Parker's post on her Christmas Kindle was also good. You can download free classics you've never read but always meant to! And at this Christmas Kindle post I learned that when I get a Kindle or a Kindle-like device, I must be very careful to never load it with games.

Then here is Parker talking to P.J. Hoover about P.J. self-publishing a book with the assistance of her literary agent.

The folks at The Spectacle finished up their blog project with some fine material. Good luck to them all.