Sunday, November 06, 2005

Humour Isn't Funny

Over at the Grumpy Old Bookman there is a bit of a debate going on about the effectiveness of using a blog to promote a novel. The point has been made that to attract readers in the quantity the G.O.B. achieves you need to provide quality content on a consistent theme.

This is a major challenge for any writer, almost as difficult as writing your novel in the first place. But it's the first hurdle you're going to have to overcome if you're going to succeed in promoting your book. There are millions of blogs out there competing for share of brain. It's essential to find some way of differentiating your blog.

I obviously chose humour to set me apart. You didn't realise that? You thought I was being serious with all those strangely-titled posts? Oh, dear.

And that's the point. Trying to be consistently funny and original is a major challenge. It's hard to control too. You'll soon find yourself going down roads that in hindsight you might find a little embarrassing. And sure as eggs is eggs you're going to offend a lot of people. Not to mention exposing your intellectual inadequacies to those cruel readers out there who have heard it all before.

So give yourself a break. Pick something easy to be consistently interesting and entertaining about. Just as long as it isn't the trials and tribulations of being an unpublished author. There's too many of those out there already.

And anyway, I've beaten you to it.

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