Collections of short stories and essays make great fodder for blogged books. Why? Because they are…well…short. Seems obvious. A short story does not run the length of a novel. And an essay tends to be shorter than a full nonfiction book.
Let’s start with fiction. I don’t write a lot about blogging fiction because it’s not my forte. My area of expertise lies in nonfiction, and, truth be told, less people are blogging fiction than nonfiction. However, there’s lots of room to blog fiction.
When you blog full length fiction, you have to worry about where to break your chapters into posts. This can prove difficult if you write long scenes, since breaking your chapters at the end of scenes makes most sense. (You can break them in other places, too.) When you blog short works, as in during National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo), you might want to think about blogging short stories. If you write very short stories, these will easy to publish one at a time. Now there’s a real challenge: blog 30 short stories in 30 days. You could also post one story over a three- or four-day period, and this way blog several in a month. In both these cases, you’d end up with a collection of short stories. An easier challenge lies in blogging one short story over the course of 30 days.
On the nonfiction side, you could pick a topic and write 30 short essays related to that topic. This would make a nice collection—kind of like the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, only blogged from your own perspective and based upon your own experience. That said, you could also invite guest bloggers to your submit essays that you feature on your blog over a 30-day period. These would all be written on a certain topic. You could then publish these in an anthology. John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, would call this a Blog Palooza. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your blog while you blog your book.
You might also try some interactive elements along with your fiction. Maybe add in some video or cartoons. If you are tech-minded or know someone who is, you might be able to start on the elements of an interactive novel or book right on your blog.
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