Let's Hear it (Again) for Blooks

Another nice article on blooks, this time by USA Today's Janet Kornblum who dropped me a note after reading the entry I wrote on them the other day.

She quotes Jeff Jarvis, a former editor and publisher who writes the blog BuzzMachine. He says that he growing popularity of blooks shows that blogs are:

the new means to discover talent and new voices that couldn't break into the world of publishing before ... You can go create a property and a voice and an audience without having to go through the publishing meat grinder.

I also liked the quote from Julie Powell who wrote Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen:

The blog readers were almost in a way co-writers — certainly inspirations ...

Because I think that this what makes blogs special - that they are a dialogue, and that your readers influence what you write about and how you write it. (I've learned this - and yes, it surprised me!)

In the normal run of things writing is a lonely occupation, but blogging is extremely social. You can gauge the effect of your words on your audience very quickly.

And of course blogs contribute to the whole dialogue on issues, drawing from the mainstream press and in turn contributing to the discourse of the mainstream press.

I'm always happy to read articles like this which underline the validity of blogging and which for a little while at least counterbalance all those sneery voices which tell you blogging isn't something you should be wasting your time on.