signing today

by Paul Madonna

So this is my last post for my week blogging. It was fun. The difference of each post is interesting, being able to set forth with whatever mood I'm in at that moment. And I'll be signing at the Book Passage store in Corde Madera today, Saturday, at 4.

I know there's been talk for a while now about the significance of new voices through blogs, while also creating a pile of more to sift through. It seems that eventually some of our best new voices may come from this medium. I wonder, though, at what point the professional blogger will pull ahead of the amateur. How will they make money? I don't want to see the internet be a pay-per-page arena. I don't want to be one of those "I remember when you could surf all day for free" curmudgeons. And yet I wonder what the next step is for the blogger.

I publish weekly in a newspaper, and the medium is suffering. Yet I still feel lucky to be in there. The opportunity to publish in a major paper is difficult to get. I published online for a couple years before getting in the paper, and never received near the response I'm getting now. Granted, the work was different, but All Over Coffee began online, and was there for months before running in the Chronicle.

I suppose some of it is clout, trust from readers and quantity of readers. And as much as I love the internet, I don't think it can take over print media totally. Sure, print has to figure out what it does best, concede the other areas to those who do it better, but I hope there's never a time when I can't hold a book in my hands.

-p