Along the same lines, what sorts of experiences have you had, positive or negative, with online communities? In particular, what are the benefits of maintaining an online presence (at your blog, or at the Official Time-Waster’s Guide forums)? Are there drawbacks?
There are a lot of positives. Most of the time, it comes in the way of encouragement and suggestions. Knowing that people support you as a writer is very motivating. Beyond that, I think it helps the readers and aspiring writers to be able to interact with someone who is making a living at writing. It offers a more inclusive experience for them, and they can see the process more.
The negatives. . .well, mostly these come from me sticking my foot in my mouth. To be honest, having a blog is a little bit like walking around with a gun pointed at your own head. In books, I can get across the emotions, thoughts, and themes that I want because I can take the time and space I need. On the internet, most communication is much more brief, and without intonation and context, a lot of things can come out sounding a lot different from the way you intended them to!
I wrote one essay called “ How Tolkien Ruined Fantasy “ which was supposed to be a silly title, as the essay itself was about how great Tolkien’s writing was, and how difficult it is to live up to his legacy. People read the title of the essay, however, and suddenly I was known on message boards as the guy who hated Tolkien!
In another essay, I talked about the mechanics and costs of hardbacks, and why publishers publish them . (You ask about this essay below, I see.) It came across, even though I tried very hard to avoid this, as me begging people to buy my hardbacks instead of my paperbacks. Suddenly, I was known as the guy who hated people who bought paperbacks! (Not my intention at all. I even give a free book away on my website. I don’t hate people who read my books; I’m honored, even if they get them for free!)
You just have to watch yourself and realize that, despite your best intentions, some things just aren’t going to work like you hope they will.
If you are viewing this on github.io, you can see that this site is open source. Please do not try to improve this page. It is auto-generated by a python script. If you have suggestions for improvements, please start a discussion on the github repo or the Discord.