I'm a Blog Stalker!

Last week I did something I’ve never done before—I read a successful YA author’s blog from her very first post to her last! Yes, it took hours, but it was fascinating.

I’m not going to name the author because A) if she got wind of what I did, it might creep her out. I’m mean really, how would I feel if I found out someone read every single blog post of mine over a four year period? Yeah, a little bit flattered, but maybe more wierded out, and B) there’s always a chance I may meet this author someday, at least in my dream world.

I’ll be giving lots of clues though, so those of you who are following her career could guess who she is.

Okay, so what I learned: Successful Author (hereto after referred to as SA), had years of aspiring author angst, like the rest of us. No free pass here, though she did luck out with a pretty awesome referral that helped her to get read by her eventual agent—but still, it didn’t happen over night, lots of waiting involved.

I loved how SA started her blog, like most of us, as just a way to chronicle our journey, share our dreams and hopefully make some friends. She talked about the agents she had queries out to, and her writing efforts in between, and how hard it was to keep getting rejected. (sound familiar?)

Then, one day, after many, many months of waiting on this particular agent ( and lots of rejections from others), she was offered representation! Yeehaw. Surely, a book sale should be well on it’s way in just a few weeks? Nope. In fact, her first book didn’t sell.

I couldn’t feel bad for her because I know how the story turns out, but at the time, SA had no idea, and it was just a big bummer, yanno?

In the meantime SA got an idea for another book. She didn’t really share much about it on her blog, other than she was writing it,(because, we learn later, she was following a trend, and was afraid she might have jumped on board a little too late) just that she was really excited about it and hoped that her agent would like it. That turned out to be an understatement.

Her agent liked it better than the first book and started shopping it around right away. In a relatively short time (especially in writer years) a pre-empt offer was on the table for a 4 book deal! Just like that.

Struggle, struggle, struggle, bam, career!

It was interesting to see how SA’s blog changed as her career advanced. She even blogged about it once, saying how the sites she obsessed over early on were replaced by other sites once she got her agent, and that she felt her blog was maturing as she did. I think that is a correct assessment, and it encouraged me, because I feel like my blog has changed somewhat since I first started and that’s okay.

In the beginning, it was all about chasing the dream. Now it’s about sharing the dream SA’s in. Instead of posts about queries and agents, it’s about book covers/launches/tours/contests and about other writers that SA met along the way who have also gotten book deals and started careers around the same time. Got that? It didn’t just happen to SA, but a bunch of other writers she met on-line, too.

What do you think? Have you ever blog stalked before? Did you come away discouraged or encouraged by what you read?