Blogging every day is like taking a shower. It’s the cost of entry, says Gary Vaynerchuk, who is the messiah of new media. Gary Vaynerchuk is owner of Wine Library, Host of Wine Library TV and the author of the bible on personal branding with passion “Crush It.” (Incidentally, everyone should read this book!)

Gary was a guest on my podcast “This Week in Media” earlier this week and in sharing best practices, he delivered the great “daily blogging is like showering” quote. It’s the first step in the day.

Yes, you should blog. Then you need to get out there, roll up your sleeves and participate in conversations. What does that mean? It means for whatever your passion is — be it a book you wrote or a Web show you created — you need to find all the places online where like-minded people are hanging out. If your show is about dog tricks, visit popular dog sites. Hang out on the forums. Talk to people there. Twitter but also respond to tweets. Answer your replies. Answer your emails from fans, friends, viewers and readers. There is a reason I say on my contact page “I enjoy hearing from readers and viewers. You can email me and I answer every email.” I say that because it’s true. I love it when This Week in Media listeners write to me and when I hear from people who are excited about reading “The Mockingbirds” next fall. And so I write back!

Because writing back is like putting make up on. Going to forums is doing your hair. Reading other blogs and viewing other Web shows is like sitting at your desk and kicking butt on your work! Saying yes to interviews — like Gary did for me — is like getting that report in on time and making it awesome. It is all work and if you love what you do, it’s worth it. Gary didn’t get where he is by just being smart about wine. He is an amazing marketer and self-promoter and those of us in business for ourselves should follow his lead.

Since he called into TWIM while on his book own tour, I asked him if he could share book tour tips for the authors who read my blog. Here’s what he said.

“I think what way too many people are scared of doing is selling. People are often scared that in social media they think selling equals spam. You have to sell. That’s what you do. If you’re writing a book you have to sell. I wasn’t thrilled with how much I talked about ‘Crush It’ for three months. But I had to. You’re an author. You’re a sales person. I think people need to work harder. The reason ‘Crush It’ was a New York Times bestseller was because I worked so outrageously hard. And if you love it, you’ve won.”

And if you’re wondering what outrageously hard means, it means way more than taking a shower every day. It means not watching as much TV, not going to as many football games, not falling asleep early.

But if you love it, it’s hardly work.