I say that because Amazon's decided to get in on the act with its new Amazon Connect, designed to "enhance the connections between authors and fans," according to Edward Wyatt's piece in the NYT. Folks like Anita Diamant and Meg Wolitzer are on board, but not everyone's having an easy time with the idea:

Ms. Wolitzer said she still felt somewhat uncertain as a blogger. "I come from a sort of butter churn and scrimshaw background," she said. "I feel ironic even using the word blog as a verb."

Nevertheless, she said, she intends to write about writing in a way similar to how she often talks to friends about the subject. "I think so much about writing books," she said, "so if I just put something like that down, I think it will be a good thing."

Then again, when I tried to access the author blogs from Amazon's main page and had a hell of a time finding the entry point, I wonder how popular this new initiative will actually be...