Being in Christchurch, I was lucky enough to attend some of the Writers Festival events that we held here over the last three days. The festival was a truly massive gathering of literary folk young and old, all keen to listen to some of their favourite authors speak. I witnessed international-scale book signings, and even a few celebrity sightings.

The most interesting for me and relevant to NZS.com was, of course, the panel discussion about blogging.The session featured legendary Los Angelino lit-blogger Mark Sarvas, whose blog The Elegant Variation has been named one of the best on the Web by publications Forbes and Entertainment Weekly.

Sarvas had a very interesting take on the importance of blogging for self-promotion, as he blogged of the process of his last novel whist writing it. Upon the book’s completion, he contacted several publishing agents (some of whom had been keeping up with his blog) and just minutes after first contact, he had sold his novel. The agent who acquired the novel’s rights had been regularly visiting Sarvas’ blog and knew he was about to contact potential publishers, so was eager to jump on the rights as soon as Sarvas let the world know he had finished it.

Blogging for business isn’t just restricted for self-promotion, so make sure your company regularly contributes to the blogosphere - you might find your next client is a regular visitor!