Blogs and book promotion

Blogs have been an integral part of online book promotion campaigns since their inception. Bloggers are more accessible than book reviewers for the average author or publisher; they have more editorial discretion than book reviewers (who have to answer to their editors and account for their use of editorial space); and they're far more enthusiastic about finding content (Q&A's, guest columns, etc.) than the average newspaper or magazine editor.

So there's always been a close relationship between blogs and book promotion. Also, so many blogs have morphed into books that we've come to expect that popular bloggers will one day publish a book. In that way, blogs can serve as stepping stones to publishing books, and then blogs can act as continuing platforms for book promotion.

I'm no stranger, then to the relationship between blogs and books. But I did have to smile at a line I just read in the Huffington Post. Brenna Ehrlich, a 25-year-old blogger-turned-author, explains the advantage books have over blogs: "It's going to be in bookstores for awhile."

Right.

Oh, well. Who knows? Maybe Ehrlich's book will be an exception to the rule. Maybe it will receive so many book promotion opportunities that it actually will make it to bookstore shelves and linger there for good, long while.