Authors Have Blogs

“Here’s a counter-intuitive thought: Shoppers with less information about a product are happier than those with more information.” (from Guy Kawasaki’s blog).

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In the old days, an author would write a book. Then, we would read the book. And then, we would wait for the author’s next book.

That was ancient history. Now, the author writes a book, writes a blog, writes about his of her next book on the blog, and we read the blog, the books, and the blog some more.

Some author’s have bad blogs. Others have simply interesting blogs. And some have really useful blogs. Many are worth a few minutes of our time once a week or so, just to see what’s next on their radar.

Here are a few of the blogs I check regulary, all by author’s whose books I have read and presented at the First Friday Book Synopsis. I read Guy Kawasaki’s blog and Seth Godin’s blog regularly. Godin is a blogging machine, writing new stuff every day. Just this week, I remembered one of his earlier posts, found it in his archives, and used it to order something I really needed for my business.

My book selection for the March synopsis, the Four-Hour Workweek, has one of the more entertaining and interesting blogs by an author. Tim Ferris just likes to think differently. He thinks about and writes about a wide, diverse set of subjects. Reading his blog just gets the juices flowing. Chris Anderson, who wrote The Long Tail, keeps teasing us about his next/new book. It is apparently about “free.” I really can’t wait!

And then, when I get a block of time, I tackle my favorite. It is the web site and blog of Malcolm Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point and Blink. He has all of his New Yorker articles archived (a truly eclectic set of mini-educations), and he blogs in short, but substantial bursts.

We truly live in a world of information overload. A lot of it is just noise. But some of the noise contains great insight, practical suggestions, and challenges to live better. That’ s what life is all about.

(What blogs do you read that we should check out?)