The purpose of this post is to show you some writer blogs that are (1) FREE and (2) done by writers who are admittedly not tech-savvy. I’ve limited my examples to Blogger and WordPress. Each writer created his or her own blog using free designs provided by the blog service. Some are customized with options included in their free design, but none of the blogs listed below was tinkered with by anyone other than the author.

Blogger:

• Sue Tornai’s Reflections of God’s Glory (free Blogger design).
• My book review blog, Tennessee Christian Reader (free design with header modifications included in the free design).
• The Stream’s Edge by Jeanne Doyon (uses free design and custom components provided with the design).
• Kentucky Christian Writers Conference blog (free design, static pages added).

WordPress:

• Pat Rowland’s Prayerful Ponderings (Using the custom header feature in her free design, Pat uploaded a photo that her son provided).
• Deborah Hemstreet’s Hope for the Hope-Challenged (Uses a free template from TemplateLite.com).
• Sue Tornai has two WordPress blogs: Kid Konnection (free WordPress design) and Pathways to Publication (using the same basic design as Pat Rowland’s but with one of the standard photos in the custom header).
• My devotional blog: Devojournal (free WordPress Theme).

If you have a blog that uses a free service and has not been extensively customized, I will happily publish your link in the future. The writers included in this post responded to my invitation on Christian Writers Fellowship International online group. If you sent me a link and your blog is not shown, I’m saving it for a later post. E-mail me at akinemily@gmail.com or post a comment on this post to send me the link to your blog.

Next week, I’ll show you how to have your blog and your website in all in one. Meanwhile, if you aren’t blogging, you need to get started. Here’s some how-to information:

• Free Site with WordPress
• Beginner’s Guide to Blogging with Blogger

If you are a writer, there are some publishing industry blogs that you really should follow. I won’t share my entire list, but here are the ones I find most valuable for myself as a Christian writer.

Sally Stuart (Christian Writers’ Market Guide): http://stuartmarket.blogspot.com/

Jim Watkins (Author, Editor, Speaker): http://jameswatkins.wordpress.com/

Terry Whalin (Author, Agent): http://terrywhalin.blogspot.com/

Michael Hyatt (CEO Thomas Nelson Publishing): http://www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/

Christian Authors Network: http://canblog.typepad.com/canbookmarketing/

Some of my other favorites are:

Lawrence Wilson (Wesleyan Publishing House): http://www.lawrencewilson.com/index.htm

Ron Ovitt’s Devotional Blog: http://devog.wordpress.com/

Jerry Brecheisen: http://brecksong.com/

When I talk to other writers about following blogs, they often ask me how I find time to follow so many. I use the feeds feature in Internet Explorer 7 favorites menu. There’s a tour of the feature on the Microsoft site. What I really like about this method is that I can see my whole list of blogs at once. The blog names that have updated material appear in bold type. I check my favorites first, and, if I run out of time, I come back later to check the others. Information on how Mozilla Firefox’s readers are here.

If you use an older version of Internet Explorer, you should be able to upgrade to IE7 on the Microsoft site. I don’t use Mozilla Firefox myself, so I don’t know whether you can upgrade from older versions or not.

The only downside of following blogs on your Web browser is that you can’t access your list from other computers. Next post, I’ll discuss some of the online feed aggregators I’ve tried.

Meanwhile, feel free to comment on this post and share any knowledge you might have on this subject. I invite you to subscribe, too.