How Our Blog Started by E. B. Davis

 

In a recent poll by Feedspot, Writers Who Kill placed eighteenth in the category of mystery blogs. I’m not sure how many mystery blogs there are, but they rated the first sixty. I’m proud we were rated in the top third. I don’t know much about Feedspot, but according to their website, they have over four million registered users and serve over one hundred-fifty countries—so their sample size seems to have been large enough to validify their results. But that begged the question: How did this come about?

If you know me and have read my interviews here on Writers Who Kill, it will not surprise you to learn that our blog started with a question—made by me, of course. I was a new member of Sisters in Crime and the Guppy Chapter of SinC. The year was 2009. At the time, blogs were new and everyone was starting to blog. As a new writer without publishing credits, I posed to the Guppy listserv discussion board, “Why should I blog when I haven’t been published?” Every published author replied that they wish they had started a blog and created a website prior to being published. Why? Not only does a writer have time before publishing to establish both, but also agents look for how much public and social media exposure a newbie writer creates. If the newbie had both, they were a better bet than one who did not have that exposure. Agents would more readily sign a newbie because chances were they would promote their own work, leading to higher sales, which then would lead to more publishing contracts. Yep—in short—the blog was a means to an end—getting an agent and a publishing contract and continued contracts.

I didn’t like that answer. Although I conceded to their justifications, I wanted a blog I was devoting considerable time to create to be more. When I reached out to others who were at my writing stage of development, three other authors decided to test the waters with me, one of whom I am proud to say, is still blogging with us, albeit having taken some time off, James M. Jackson. Because we were all unpublished writers and, at least I felt like a poser, we decided to blog about being writers, not just about our publications, because, of course, we had no publications. To establish the blog, we scouted for platforms. Jim led us to Blogspot because it was easy to use and served our needs (at the time—better than it does now). Luckily, one of the bloggers, Jordaina, had artistic talent and knew photoshop. She created our masthead. 

We wanted to:

1.     Highlight our publishing successes and failures because these experiences were common to all writers.

2.     Share empathy with other writers to cheer or provide sympathy, depending.

3.     Show how these ups and downs could be weathered regardless the writer’s experience level.

4.     Create a place for writers where there would be no snobbery or competitiveness.

5.     Navigate this new-to-us writing industry, getting help when we didn’t understand something or get information on “how to do” something (i.e., writing blurbs, writing book reviews, writing letters to agents, etc.), which is how I ended up being Class Guppy, now the Educational Coordinator for the Guppy Chapter. It was a “find the answers” assignment that I often blogged about.

 

Pauline Alfred and Jordaina Sydney Robinson started with us, but later decided blogging wasn’t for them. Jim, Jordaina, and I are still writing. I’ve sadly lost track of Pauline. The first post was written by me to introduce myself on May 2, 2010, as did Jim two days later. I was surprised to find out that Warren Bull, who blogged with us for a long time, was not an original member, but signed on for a long haul later that year. Warren stopped blogging for us a few years ago due to health issues, as did Linda Rodriguez. I was proud that editor Ramona DeFelice Long blogged with us for a time until she decided it was a conflict of interest to her business. We all learned a lot from Ramona, who, sadly, died a few years ago.    

Many writers have come and gone through our blogging doors over the years. But I am grateful to the professionals that have joined the blog. They have shaped WWK into one of the best mystery blogs in the world. (Wow—how about that!) Now, in our fifteenth year, we have twenty-four writers who blog with WWK. We’ve learned that blogging shouldn’t be a full-time job. To be able to write about our writing experiences, writers must have time to actually write. Most of our writers not only are published, but have established mystery series and often, multiple mystery series. We’ve gone through winning and losing contracts, getting and losing agents, gone through publishers going out of business, being acquired by new publishing houses or have gone indie by establishing our own publishing houses. We’ve discussed everything writing from how to avoid gain weight while our butts are in the writing chair to the financial end of the business.

I hope WWK has become the haven for writers that was an important part of why the blog came into being. We are here to promote, but we are also here to share.