Guess I’m one of the few out there who doesn’t share the gushing excitement for Hugh Macleod’s cartoons. I’m not saying they are bad, no they are alright and a few of them have made me go hmm or smile, but I’m more fond of what Fitzpatrick and Pirillo are doing with Blaugh. Maybe it’s the color vs. black and white thing for comics? Maybe it’s that Macleod’s work sort of reminds me of Spy vs. Spy from Mad Magazine? I wonder if that’s been an inspiration? Whatever the case, Hugh definitely has talent.

This morning I was reading an interview with Seth Godin, another popular figure I don’t really get all the excitement about conducted by interviewer Macleod at Gaping Void where Hugh writes:

As a cartoonist, I find myself quite surprised that very few of the more prominent bloggers out there are in the “Arts”. It seems we have lots of business thinkers, technologists, entrepreneurs, consultants etc, but why do we have so surprisingly few filmmakers, playwrights, novelists, musicians, painters etc at the top of the pyramid? I have a few theories myself as to why this is, but may I ask what may be your take on it?

Godin’s answer basically says they are coming. Give it more time.

This got me thinking about popular novelists like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Danielle Steel. I’ll leave the other types of arts alone and focus purely on the novelists. Why do none of these three people have blogs? Or do they? What would a blog do for somebody like Stephen King? He already can write down his thoughts in a journal and someday, probably posthumously, those thoughts will be published and make his heirs another fortune.

Stephen King a Phisher, according to Microsoft
There is a Stephen King blog from a techie, not the famous horror novelist, and uses the byline “Steve King.” Ironically, Steve King from PA was pigeonholed as a phisher by Microsoft. A mistake that Mr. King believe is being rectified. That was March 2006. Today Site Advisor tells me Mr. King’s blog is not a phishing site.

I mean, really, why does the famous novelist Stephen King need to write in a blog when he can write something and everybody will be clamoring to pay him for it to be published? King has been writing in a blog-like tone since day one, writing for the every day people but in the book format. King is a likeable, every day guy who just happens to also be a millionaire. He makes mistakes like the rest of us do, like when he fingered Poseidon as being a summer hit and it was quite the opposite. If King ever does start a blog, it will rise to the top of the pile instantly because he is real. I’d love to see King do it, I’d be one of his first subscribers.

Dean Koontz ‘podcasts’
Koontz has taken a different road than King. You might say he is more like a traditional blogger who starts with no readers and builds up an audience. He went more like the road of Isaac Asimov in that he was prolific. Many of Koontz early books weren’t hugely popular until he re-released them.

This is the beauty of becoming a bestselling novelist. What you wrote under a pen name years ago can come back under a different name and make the unpopular popular. What a magic trick. And Koontz should probably stay away from speaking. Apparently he told a story to a bunch of fans about wanting his name removed from Hideaway because Alicia Silverstone was starring in it. And then went on some kind of rant about Japanese people referring to the chairman of a film company as “Mr. Teriayaki.”

Koontz might not have a blog (or does he? I couldn’t find one) but he has created eight podcasts for his publisher Random House. I put that in quotes on the heading above because I couldn’t find any RSS feed and I thought one of the necessary components of a podcast was some type of syndication. Sure, they might be or appear as promotional podcasts — particularly how they close each podcast — and not “real podcasts” as some podcasting purists might cry but they actually aren’t too bad and are in Koontz’s own voice. They are better than Paris Hilton podcast for the House of Wax. To counter the offensive Mr. Teriyaki speaking event story, listen to episode 5 where Dean talks about his second scariest experience. He was introduced as bestselling romance writer Dean Cone-ance.

In another podcast (episode #4) Koontz talks about where he gets his ideas and says:

I don’t know where all these ideas keep coming from, but thank God they do, because I don’t ever want to have to go out and get a real job.

I’m sure if Koontz had a blog a few more people might realize he is actually a horror/suspense novelist and his last name is not pronounced Cone-ance, but again, why would he need to?

And then there was Danielle Steel
Steel has a news area on her official blog which is also from Random House. I don’t know much more about Ms. Steel than she has a bunch of bestselling books and my wife likes reading some of them. Romance books aren’t a genre I’m into. I used Google to search around and couldn’t locate an official blog from Ms. Steel anywhere. Does she have one?

She doesn’t need one either.

Being in the arts
I’m sure there are plenty of B,C and D-list novelists that have blogs. There are probably a few popular bestselling novelists with blogs that would counter this entire piece and Macleod’s surprise that there aren’t more prominent bloggers in the arts.

I think the underlying answer is time. Yes, that’s kind of obvious, but it takes time to write, maintain and update a blog frequently. A novelist who is trying to build his/her brand is going to want and need the tools. A blog, podcast and anything else they can utilyze to get their name out there. But once they reach that pinnacle where their official website becomes RandomHouse.com — which to geeks and wannabe novelists like me wouldn’t be that thrilling a prospect — they don’t need blogs any more.

Fans would argue and say that’s not true, but I’m thinking the artists are going to apply their time to writing in the format that makes them the most money.

The future of popular novelists
This comes full circle to Seth Godin’s interview answer which I think is a bullseye. They are coming. I think the next wave of wildly popular novelists will be more prominent bloggers. As the existing novelists pass the torch the focus on dead tree books will be less. There will be more e-book success stories — or some other variation of electronic book — where dead trees didn’t create a name and brand. Who will these people be? I don’t know, but I look forward to the next generation of wildly successful novelists and their blogs where they share a one to many relationship with their fans and readers.

We can’t take books to the beach is another one of Seth’s points for books, and again I agree, but Tablet PC and UMPC and who knows what other future technology devices are trying to get us there where we can take a book anywhere we want. The beach, bathroom, on the bus, when we don’t have battery power.

We’re stlll not there yet, but it is coming.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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