Do blogs sell books?

Well to me they do, yes .  I've written before about how my book recommendations are nowadays more likely to come from bloggers whose taste I have learnt to trust, rather than from the review pages which often sell me a pup (Dorothy also has this on her mind today too!).  But so far I haven't mentioned the related field of author blogs.  My blog roll is mainly composed of readers, but recently I have been reading two excellent blogs by established authors: Susan Hill and Jenny Diski.

Susan Hill was familiar to me - I still recall the wonderful experience of reading The Woman in Black in a single delicious session, and I have her Various Haunts of Men sitting on the TBR pile too.  If the blog is anything to go by she is a remarkably energetic woman, has an eye for nature and the ability to describe it beautifully and is, a voracious, passionate reader.  No one gets on my sidebar with less than a total reading obsession!

Jenny Diski though was someone I'd vaguely heard of but not read. However, her blog drew me in immediately.  I discovered it via this post  at the ever wonderful Light Reading.  That excerpt from the essay captured my feelings perfectly (I hate having events in the diary, commitments, things I have to prepare for, that hang over me) but Jenny Diski puts it so much better than I ever could.  And this post on writing is also excellent. I now realise that she's also the author of some of the LRB pieces that I have most enjoyed (and one especially good one on Mrs Freud is up on her website).  But the blog has brought it all together for me and my immediate instinct is to dive right into as much of her published work as I can find.  All three volumes of her memoirs/travelogues arrived at my local library last week (which is how I came to be reading about disappointment) and whilst that will make her only a modest amount of money from the public lending right, if I read and like them then one or two of you out there might do the same as well, and surely that will gain her some readers.  But of course this only works if the content is any good.  Internet adverts posing as blogs are more likely to repel readers (or this one at least) than to convert them.

Comments

[Carl V.]

I definitely think blogs sell books. I just have to look at this relatively small book blogging community I've stumbled across and the books I've purchased because someone else recommended them as well as those people have purchased because I've posted on them to know that book sales increase because of positive blog press.

[Dorothy W.]

I was grateful to find Jenny Diski's blog too. I'd be curious to know more about how blogs affect book buying -- I buy books based on blogs, but I wonder how wide an effect they have more generally.

[davidbdale]

I could spend all day hopping from your wonderful site to all the irresistible links you've sprinkled on the page and I will, when that day arrives, that mythical day! Until then, I'll dip in and out as I'm sure many do, and enjoy what little time I do have to spend.

And yes, more and more I take my buying recommendations from bloggers I know I can trust.

[maggie]

It was my understanding The Thirteenth Tale became a bestseller through positive blog reviews. Wouldn't that be a hoot, we bloggers, the alternative to Booklist, LJ, Choice, etc. reviews.