Author homepages

December 1, 2003 8:28 AM

Self-referential or self-promoting sites created by authors (as opposed to their fans or publishers) can provide fascinating insights into the person behind the writing or provide ways to interact with the writer or the works that go beyond the initial reading. Some take advantage of the web to connect with readers, while others use it as a mere marketing tool. With the recent trend in writers who blog (a separate category) abandoning their blogs to regain time for their writing, are these types of personal pages also an endangered species?
posted by rushmc (11 comments total)

Any favorites?
posted by rushmc at 8:29 AM on December 1, 2003

So I guess it would be bad to self-link to my own site that I just put up?
posted by gottabefunky at 9:20 AM on December 1, 2003

you mean you put this entire post together without puttung up a link to neil gaiman's website? or is he in the "writers that blog" category?
posted by pxe2000 at 9:25 AM on December 1, 2003

Or Holly Black.
posted by Hildegarde at 10:01 AM on December 1, 2003

Strictly speaking, it's a page devoted to a single novel, but I still like Geoff Ryman's interactive novel 253 (which is not quite the same as the print version).
posted by thomas j wise at 10:09 AM on December 1, 2003

Jennifer Weiner has a very accessible weblog, called SnarkSpot.

"My husband and I have had lots of talks about how we'd handle a nerdy, socially inept kid (having both been NSIKs ourselves, we can deliver multiple, fairly convincing versions of the "Your life will not suck like this forever" speech)."


Like her books, don't like her books, but her blog is very funny.
posted by kristin at 11:09 AM on December 1, 2003

Charles De Lint's is interesting, but not pretty. You have to pick through it. I thought he used to have info. on the annual used, rare, etc. booksale they had at their house. They gave a map to their house for it.

Also the wonderful Daniel Pinkwater, with a fun photo page.
posted by lobakgo at 1:15 PM on December 1, 2003

Is there an actual trend towards authors dropping their blogs in favor of writing in excess of that in the normal populace? I would imagine it follows a fairly rough approximation of the rest of the online world: some take it, some leave it. I'm sure authors, especially those such as Gibson and Gaiman, feel some pressure to be "with it" and produce blogs, but to what extent?

I can see some concern with not wanting to rob yourself of writing time and perhaps equating blogging with whatever sort of creative endeavors pay the bills, but the same could probably be said for any such distraction.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:28 PM on December 1, 2003

Gibson quit his blog.

Orson Scott Card has lost weight. Come to think of it, so has Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing. A strange trend, perhaps.
posted by mecran01 at 4:01 PM on December 1, 2003

I'm a long-time Jonathan Carroll fan. Ursula K. Le Guin has a good site, too. Douglas Coupland's showcases his art and design as well as his books. Ian McEwan's has an extensive bibliography of works by and about him. Others worth a look include Chuck Palahniuk, Stephen Fry, Tony Hawks, and on the non-fiction side, James Gleick, John McCrone and Tom Standage. And now that Mil Millington has two fine novels out, his site is officially an author site. (Gone but not forgotten: Joe Queenan's.)
posted by rory at 2:14 AM on December 2, 2003

jt leroy and piers anthony :D oh and super flat !
posted by kliuless at 5:38 PM on December 4, 2003