Monique Trottier, book blogger and internet evangelist with Boxcar Marketing (formerly Work Industries), led a panel featuring authors Meg Tilly, KC Dyer, Crawford Killian, Pete McCormack and Robert Wiersema at Northern Voice 2008 called "From Book to Blog or Blog to Book."
All of the authors started blogs for various reasons, from exploring their voice online to simply exploring a new medium and sharing their ideas. The authors said that one of the potential pitfalls of blogging is that it can take valuable time away from writing a novel. Tilly said that the blog becomes a conversation between herself and her readers, and in some ways is much more intimate and friendly than her time as an actress. All of the outhors agreed that the web makes the world a much smaller place and allows for more interaction with fans, and with blogs those fans become online collaborators. KC Dyer said she concentrates more on the writing process than on the actual books she writes.
One of the questions asked by the audience was "has blogging killed the book?" The authors agreed that blogging isn't the same as writing a book, and Killian pointed out that blogging is no different than teaching or many other distractions that can keep an author from staying focused. One of the authors even rents out a basement suite with no phone or internet in order to write. All the authors agreed that using the web to build on the book and continue the experience through the web creates a platform for further print work.
