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How to Blog A Tip Book in 30 Days or Less

April 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

NaBoBloMo, blog a book, how to blog a book, tip booksI love producing short books fast, and I often teach workshops on this topic. Writers get very excited about becoming a published author in under a month. What better time to try writing and publishing a short book fast than during what I have decided to call National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo). As I said at the beginning of the month, the challenge is to blog a book in a month. You can even still do that if you are starting now.

If you are like me, sometimes it’s impossible to find the time or the energy to write long—long posts or long books. You want to write a book, but turning out 200-250 pages seems like too big a project to tackle. You might find this especially true when you want to get something done in, say, 30 days, like during NaBoBLoMo. Rather than have this stop you from even starting, begin a smaller book project.

Short books can be anywhere from 16 to 100 pages in length. Fast and much less intimidating to produce, you even can create them out of repurposed material, such as blog posts, e-zine articles or sections of books. But it’s easier to just blog them from scratch. Today, let’s look at how to blog the easiest short book of them all: a tip book. This is something you easily still can blog over the next 20 days if you are just joining NaBoBloMo, for instance.

A tip book usually features a list of 10-101 tips. Normally, you find one per page, but I’ve seen some tip books that are just long lists of tips with many per page. Each tip might be just a sentence long or you can include a paragraph or two of explanation. This determines the how many are included on the page. I prefer the type that has a tip highlighted at the top of the page with a brief explanation.

Writing a tip book is pretty simple. Just compose a list of tips about something you know a lot about. To start, pick a topic. to do so, ask yourself:

  • In what area or subject am I an expert?
  • What problem have I solved?

Can you tell people 20 ways to keep a gophers from eating their plants or offer 50 tips for baking better muffins? Do you know 30 ways to save money on taxes or 100 ways to generate more business leads? If so, you’re an expert on that topic and can write a tip book. For example, you might write 50 Tips for Faster Housecleaning, 101 Tips for Baking Better Bread or 99 Tips for Sewing Sensational Prom Dresses.

If you prefer, you can create a step book, such as 20 Steps Toward Better Child Rearing or 50 Steps for a Better Blog. You can also call your tips or steps “ways,” as in 10 Ways to Help Your ADHD Child.

If you create a simple design even in Microsoft Word and a nice cover, a printer with a booklet press or Kinko’s can print this very inexpensively for you using saddle stitching (staples). Depending upon the page count and size of the book, you might even be able to produce these as print on demand (POD) books; if you design it as a small-sized book your page count will go up and your can produce a normal perfect-bound paper back book.

Blogging a tip book will only take you as long as the number of tips (or steps or ways) you choose to include. 50 tips, 50 days—unless you publish more posts per day or more tips per post.

If you missed the announcement, you can win a free, signed copy of How to Blog a Book by participating in NaBoBloMo. Here’s how. Write a post a day and get at least a 7,500-word manuscript completed in a month. That’s a 250-word post per day (or a longer post 5 days per week). Here are the rules/requirements: Send in your 7,500-word manuscript with a table of contents, a 50-word pitch, and an overview of the book (synopsis). It must arrive by 12 p.m. 4/30/12 Pacific Time.  Email it to me at nina (at) ninaamir (dot) com.

Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, Blogs Turned Into Books Tagged With: , , ,

What kind of book could you produce from your blog content?

March 6, 2012 By 3 Comments

The majority of bloggers who have landed book deals didn’t set out to blog a book. They simply blogged their way to a book deal. And once they signed on the dotted line, they had to figure out how to book their blog—repurpose all those blog posts into a manuscript that would read like a book and not a blog.

That’s actually a lot harder to do than to blog a book from scratch. However, there may be more bloggers out there trying to figure out how to repurpose their content into a book than there are aspiring authors trying to figure out how to blog a book. Why? Because bloggers churn out tons of content on a regular basis, and aspiring authors sometimes simply dream of writing and don’t actually write.

In fact, The New York Times reported in 2002 that 81 percent of the US population feels they have a book in them and should write it. If that statistic holds true today, that means that as of March, 5, 2012, about 254 million people have a book in their head they say they want to get out. However, only 2 percent of that population actually will complete a manuscript–as reported by AuthorHouse.com that same year. Why? Because there’s a big difference between having an idea for a book and actually writing the book.

Many aspiring authors feel overwhelmed by the actual details of writing a book or don’t find time to complete a manuscript. Bloggers, on the other hand, churn out books every day. They just don’t always know it—or plan to do so. They just keep on blogging, writing and publishing post after post.

To date this blog has been focused on how to blog a book—how to evaluate a book idea for publication online and off, map out its content in post-sized pieces, and then write, publish and promote it on the internet using blog technology. (And I did blog a book in just five months.) As a change of pace—and to assist those long-time bloggers interested in publishing a book, my next series of posts will be focused upon how to book a blog—how to repurpose existing blog content into a manuscript that you can publish in a variety of ways, such as an ebook or a print book.

To get the ball rolling, here’s a list of a few different types books you might consider producing from existing blog content:

  1. a tip book
  2. a workbook
  3. a manual
  4. a handbook
  5. a memoir
  6. a short, pocket-sized book
  7. a photography book
  8. a chap book (poetry)
  9. a collection of short stories
  10. a collection of inspirational stories
  11. a collection of guest posts (to give away)
  12. an anthology

That’s just what I came up with off the top of my head. Look over your content. What ideas do you come up with? What kind of book could you produce from your blog content? Add it to my list by leaving me a comment.

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The easiest way to become an author—fast—is to blog your book.

Write, publish and promote your work at the same time easily and quickly.

You could land a publishing deal in the process–or create a big enough platform to launch a self-published book.

Learn more about how to “Blog Your Way to a Book Deal” in my 4-part teleclass.

Register today! Get the details here.
Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, Blogs Turned Into Books, Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book) Tagged With: , , , ,

Last Stages: Interior and Cover Book Design

February 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

I am now in the last stages of my blog-to-book process. I recently got my first view of the interior design of the book, and several months ago I received a copy of the cover design. You might wonder if I had any say over either of these things. No.

When I first saw the cover, I thought, “Hey! Pretty nice!” This was followed by, “Why is the cover light blue? Is it supposed to look like WordPress blue? It doesn’t stand out…It’s kind of muted, not bright and eye catching.” Then I thought, “What the heck is that? A computer screen?”

I sent an email to my editor asking some of these questions. The response came back that the color choice was made consciously because most other books about how to write a book or get published are, indeed, brightly colored. They wanted mine to stand out from the pack because of its calm, muted color.  They wanted it to be clean and simple as well.

Okay, I could buy all that. That left the question of the actual illustration. One of my experts said, “That is not a picture of a blog on the cover…not a WordPress screen, for sure. Looks kind of like the Safari browser.”

No one ever really told me what it was and I’ve never used Safari, but it is some sort of browser. I know that because my blog website address sits right there in the search box on the cover. And I stopped wondering and worrying about it when I saw the interior design and realized that on the top of every chapter the same search box appears with my blog address in it again! What could be better than that for driving traffic to a website? So, no complaints from me on the interior design, and no further complaints on the cover design.

We did have some issues on space. If you recall, when I signed the contract the publisher asked me to write more words than I proposed. And I did…and then some. Then the editor asked me to elaborate on some points and add resources, etc., as I explained in this post. While no one ever complained about the book’s length, as the book’s final design was completed, I started to hear about page constraints.

I managed had managed to garner 15 pre-press testimonials, or blurbs, for the book. (I’ll write about how I did this next week.) I was super excited about this fact, but we ended up only being able to use 10 because the design only accommodated two pages of them. Also, I landed two forewords for the book—yes, this is nontraditional (and I’ll write about this next week, too)—and these ended up needing to be edited down to one page each to make them fit. They were supposed to be blog-post sized, but still…I also had to edit my acknowledgements and dedication once or twice for space.

I’m unclear if I’ll get another chance to see the book before print. Sometimes authors do get another read through. I know the book will still go through a proofreader and an indexer.

You might notice that the cover does not yet reflect the names of the writers of my two forewords.

I understand from several other Writer’s Digest Book authors that there were little thing they didn’t realize about their book design until they saw the actual physical books. So, I’m excited to hold one in my hand. This won’t happen until April. In fact, they may show up at a conference bookstore in Reno, NV, where I’m speaking before I even get one, but I hope that isn’t the case.

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Filed Under: Blogs Turned Into Books, How This Blog Became a Book, News About How to Blog a Book Tagged With: , ,

Darren Rowse on Book Deals and Discovery in the Blogosphere

January 12, 2012 By 4 Comments

Like most recipients of blog-to-book deals, Darren Rowse landed his while simply blogging. However, he already had started thinking about writing a book—or, more specifically, turning his blog, ProBlogger, into a book. Then, he and his blog were discovered. That’s what many of us want—that email or phone call from an agent or publisher saying, “Have you thought of writing a book or turning your blog into a book?”

While I was at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Los Angeles this past November, I sat down with Darren Rowse, the author of the extremely popular ProBlogger blog and the co-author of ProBlogger the book, which was published in 2010 by Wiley. Darren also writes other blogs Digital Photography School, FeelGooder and TwiTip) and makes his living as a professional blogger.

In this, part two of my interview with Darren, he talks about his book deal, writing his book, how to create a better blog, and getting noticed in the blogosphere. (To read part one, click here.)

How did your blog-to-book deal come about?

ProBlogger, the book, was always something I thought I possibly could do.  By the time [Chris Garrett and I] wrote the book there must have been 4,000 or so posts on ProBlogger. Readers would say, “I can’t find things on your blog. Have you written about so and so?” The problem with a blog is that it’s usually the last post that’s on the front page, and readers don’t have an easy way to find things unless you think carefully about your navigation and how to drive people into your archives.  A lot of the archives sit their unread. I’d already started to write something that was kind of a how-to-blog book for beginners because I was getting a lot of questions about that topic. I was trying to put it together more as an ebook at the time. I didn’t really know how to publish it.

Then Wiley came to me and said, “Have you ever thought of writing a book?”

I thought, “I’ve already started.” So, I sent the guy a copy of what I’d written.

He said, “This is a good basis for a book.” I did need to rewrite it, and I worked with Chris Garrett as a co-author on it and really about taking those bones and adding examples and making it flow a bit more.

How much of ProBlogger, the book, is based on actual blog posts or what was already on the blog?

That original manuscript I was writing was straight from the blog, but most of it was rewritten and updated as a combination of posts brought together. I was writing about how to monetize a blog and had written 300-400 articles on that. I was trying to work out which were the best posts and which were relevant and meshing them together. It was more of a rewrite than a copy and paste, that’s for sure. I took ideas from comments as well; that was probably one of the best parts about it. I’d written things, and then readers had added comments and their different experiences. I was able to take those ideas and incorporate them. Some turned into examples and screen shots used in the book.

The concept of blogging a book revolves around the fact that writing one in short bits—blog posts—makes it less overwhelming.  How did you write your book?

That’s how I ended up doing it. Breaking it down into short sections or tasks.

Although, having said that, I locked myself in a hotel for five days at the end as the deadline loomed and knocked it out. There were times I broke it down and others when I had to vomit out a lot at once. It’s more about your personality and how you work best.

I think working with someone else was good, too. Co-authoring with Chris worked well. His skill set is quite different than mine, and the way he works is quiet different from the way I work. So it was useful to be able to tag team.

What’s the most important thing a blogger can do to get noticed in the blogosphere?

One of the biggest things is just to be useful and create content that’s worth being noticed. You can get noticed by being controversial, being stupid, or attacking someone, or all those things, but unless you’ve got something useful to contribute—something that is actually productive, I think getting noticed is a waste of time. It can be counterproductive to do those other things. So, as a foundational thing, be useful.

Then, try to work at how to serve other bloggers and develop other win-win relationships with them. A lot of the bloggers I’ve worked with, those relationships have started with me offering my services to them or them offering their services to me in some way and us serving each other. This then ends in all sorts of wonderful collaborations and them linking up to me or me linking up to them. A lot of bloggers see each other as competition, but I think we should be trying to grow each others blogs mutually. That’s probably been the best thing for me.

What advice would you give to bloggers and writers or aspiring authors wanting to produce ebooks?

I always wanted to create my own products to sell. Writing a [traditionally published] book is great, but obviously you are earning a very small percentage of the sale price, which is fine. There are other benefits to writing and publishing a book.  I always wanted to do it but felt it was overwhelming. As someone who writes posts, which could be 100 words or maybe 1,000 words, to write something so big felt overwhelming.

My first ebooks where purely taking blogs posts I’d written, putting them into a collection, adding a few more bits to each of them, and then selling them almost as short cuts to the topic. I was very skeptical as to whether this would work; I didn’t think my readers would want repurposed content, but in the end they actually demanded it. My first ebook was purely a collection of posts that I added a little bit to, and readers had been asking for me to do that. So, my first piece of advice is: The things you’ve already written could be the basis for your ebook.

We’ve done about 14 ebooks now, and the ones that have done the best have been a combination of teaching and homework, or tasks to do, rather than purely information. They’ve driven people to action. So 31 Days to Build a Better Blog gives you something to read every day and something to do every day. It’s more of a workbook. We’ve tried to incorporate things to go away and do even in our photography books, and the feedback from that has been really good. In fact, people often take our ebooks now and run a course on them on their own blogs, which we are quite happy for them to do because they point people back to the ebook; they all work through the ebook together. 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is a great example. Heaps of groups have gone through that together. They’re using our ebook, and that’s driven a lot of the sales.

In terms of topics for your ebook, you want to think really carefully about the outcome of ebook. On Digital Photography School, we released two ebooks by the same author, both very similar in terms of the voice, both beautifully designed, really great information. One was about travel photography, so it had a really specific outcome; when you read this it will improve your travel photos. The other one was about color, which is a really important topic, but there is no tangible outcome. People weren’t going to read it and take travel photos. They just weren’t worrying about color. We found it harder to market that second book because it didn’t have a tangible outcome. I think choosing topics and thinking about how you are going to market them even before you start writing the ebook is really important. That’s something we learned. Now we bring our marketing people in to talk to the author in before we start. We want the author to write with some tangible outcomes in mind. That’s helped a lot.

What advice would you give to writers wanting to blog a book—or blog—and build readership/platform while doing so?

Certainly, when I talked to Wiley, they sparked up even more when I told them we had a readership and we had a community and were on Twitter and all of that.

I get a lot of emails from authors saying, “My book is coming out next week, how do start a blog to support it?” It’s just way too late at that point. At the very least you should be sharing some of the topics you are writing about, getting feedback and getting engagement around those topics as you are writing, if not posting some of your content as you are writing it. That not only improves your writing, but you are building a readership for your book as you do so, building anticipation for the book.

What one or two things that you did would you attribute to your blogging success and to the book deal you landed?

I think a lot of it comes down to longevity. Most bloggers give up after or by three months. Blogging for a year, two years, three years, nine years—I think I’m up to now, that builds your brand, builds your credibility, shows your readers you’re not just here one day and gone the next, which builds trust with readers. While at BlogWorld Expo I’ve met people who have been reading my blog since 2003. Even though I don’t know them, they feel like they know me. I think that is a big part of it—that personal connection people feel over time. So, longevity and being useful.

Every post I write I ask myself, “Does this matter?  Is this a post that is actually going to matter to someone, or is it about my ego? Is it actually going to serve someone?” If it isn’t going to serve someone, there really isn’t much point in publishing it.

If you’ve been blogging your book as discussed on this blog, you don’t need to weed through thousands of posts to book your blog. If you have simply been blogging, however, like Darren, you can begin repurposing your posts for a traditionally published book or a variety of ebooks—and you can continue to build your blog readership so you get discovered by a traditional publisher or become attractive to one when you shop your book idea to agents and publishers. Remember, generating traffic to your blog ensures book sales for any book—traditionally published or self-published.

Let me know how you’re blogging and book blogging efforts are going. Feel free to leave your questions and comments here for Darren or for me.

Look me up at the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City (January 20-22). I’ll be teaching a session on “How to Blog a Book.” As a new attendee, you can save $115 on full registration with this code: WDCSPEAKER12. Go to http://bit.ly/WDC2012 to register.

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Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, Blogs Turned Into Books, Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book), Building a Better Blog, Landing an Angent or Traditional Publisher Tagged With: , , ,

What NOT to Do When You Book a Blog

December 18, 2011 By 6 Comments

I highly recommend repurposing, or recycling your blog posts into a book. However, you can’t just slap you posts together and say, “Done!”

Just this morning I was reading an announcement about a booked blog, one that was repurposed into a book, and thinking, “Wow. This guy has it all wrong.” The blogger and author, Kevin Shively, admits he did just that–slapped the posts together without editing or proofreading–not even bothering to check for misspellings. BIG mistake, at least if you want your book to meet the quality of traditionally published books–and you do. I personally wouldn’t buy The Handsome Man’s Guide to Being Handsome after that announcement–not that the title, the copy he wrote about how to write a book or his attitude about women enticed me anyway. (But that’s just me…)

Just a few hours later I read a blog post from marketing expert extraordinaire and publisher Seth Godin. In it he basically says the same thing about the quality of self-published books–especially ebooks. And it’s very easy to turn your blogged book or booked blog into an ebook. Here’s most of what Godin said in his post:

When anyone can publish a book, anyone will.

Including people who will collect up public domain articles, paste them into Word and hit publish.

And people who will use keywords to trick you into thinking a book is about something it isn’t.

Of course, there have been counterfeit handbags for sale on the streets of New York for decades. The difference? We trust books. Books are special.

The giant risk (okay, it’s not a risk, it’s a certainty) of the long tail ebook revolution is that without enforced curation due to scarcity, the average quality is going to plummet (it has to) and the risk of buying a bogus book goes way up.

You don’t want your readers to pick up your book and feel they purchased a counterfeit, or bogus, book. You don’t want them to feel turned of by the quality of the book and, therefore, be unable to take in the content–the information–you’ve provided. You want them to feel they got the real deal. You want them to trust you and come back and buy more books and services and products. So go to the trouble of getting professional editing and design for your blog posts when you decide to book your blog or blog a book.

We all miss small errors in our work. We make mistakes. Even editors and proofreaders miss things. But don’t just slap a bunch of posts together and announce proudly, “This is a book–and I didn’t bother to reread my work even once.” That’s not a good way to gain credibility in the marketplace.

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Filed Under: Blogs Turned Into Books, Selling Books and Information Products Tagged With: , , ,

Turn a Series of Blog Posts into a Short Book

December 15, 2011 By 2 Comments

I often teach a workshop called “How to Write a (Short) Book Fast.” As part of this workshop, I discussing booking a series of blog posts, which means repurposing 10 or 15 posts you’ve written in succession on the same topic.

I did this with my book, 10 Days and 10 Ways to Your Best Self. I took 10 blog posts I’d already written, added an introduction and conclusion, edited the copy, and then tacked on some promotional material for my other short books at the end. When done, I had a 72-page book. I had it printed on a short-run digital press and then also at CreateSpace.

Just today I saw an article about a blogger who did something similar. After writing 23 posts about redistricting in Howard County, Maryland, Frank Hecker, created an ebook on the topic.

“It ballooned to 10 or 12 (blog posts) and finally ended with 23,” Hecker was quoted as saying in an article on ExploreHoward.com. “Once I got to the point of seriously finishing I decided, ‘Hey, I want to turn it into an e-book.’”

Hecker announced the release of the e-book, titled Dividing Howard: A History of County Council Redistricting in Howard County, Maryland, on his blog Wednesday, Dec. 7. The e-book is available for $2.99 on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

The content of the e-book is the same as his 23-part blog series. The e-book puts all 23 posts together between two covers.

Almost any blogger can create a book by repurposing 10-20 posts. Take a look at your blog. Find a series you’ve written or a group of related posts. You may be surprised to find you’ve already blogged a book.

And if you haven’t, simply plan out a series. Then start blogging that short book over the course of the next few weeks. Before you know it, you’ll have blogged a book.

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Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, Blogs Turned Into Books Tagged With: , , ,

2011 May Exceed 2009 Blog-to-Book Deal Numbers

November 15, 2011 By 4 Comments

You may be bored with these posts, but I’m not. Today I started jumping up and down in my office when I discovered yet one more blog released as a book in October. Why? That brings the number of blog-to-books released by traditional publishers in October that I know about–there likely are more–to 6. That doesn’t sound like many. Multiply 6 by 12 months of the year, though, and you come up with 72.

Big deal, right?

Yes. Big deal.

At the height of the blog-to-book trend in 2009, experts claim 50-60 blog-to-book deals were made. If an average of 6 blogs are showing up in print form every month of 2011, the trend has exceeded the past heights.

Whoo-hoo!

While I was at Blog Word Expo in Los Angeles at the beginning of the month, Wiley had a booth there. They were featuring numerous bloggers’ books–bloggers who had been picked up by Wiley and asked to write a book. Most wrote a book that consisted of partially blogged material.  However, Wiley isn’t the only publisher looking for test marketed book ideas. After all, that’s what a successful blog is–a test marketed book idea.

For instance, the book I came across today was published by Gotham. David McRaney is the creator of the WordPress.com blog You Are Not So Smart. You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself was, as I said, released last month. Adams Media, Betterway Books, NAL Trade, Gallery Books, Writer’s Digest Books (my publisher), and Chicago University Press have turned blogs into printed books –to name just a few publishers just off the top of my head.

So, what are you waiting for?  In fact, don’t wait any longer. Start blogging you book today. Write a post a day…or five days a week…and get that book blogged in a year or less.

Gonna take me up on the challenge? Tell me about your book idea…

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Filed Under: Blogs Turned Into Books Tagged With: , , ,

Learn How to Blog Your Way to a Book Deal

October 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

If you can write, you can blog. That means you can blog your way to a book deal. You can blog a book, and write and publish your work one post at a time in cyberspace while also promoting it so you get “discovered.”

Agents and acquisition editors continue to troll the Internet looking for blogs to turn into books because they want to find books as close to a “sure thing” as possible. A blog with an established readership and a blogger with a built-in fan base or platform is about as close as they can find. That’s why so many blogs are still receiving book contracts. Just as many bloggers are landing deals and having their books released per month currently as at the height of the blog-to-book craze in 2009.

So, why not join me on for a FREE teleseminar on Tuesday, October 25th at Noon Pacific Time (3 PM Eastern) to learn how you can blog your way to a book deal by blogging a book (or simply writing a blog) that attracts readers, agents and publishers. That’s right…stop reading this blog for a day and actually listen to me speak (a novel idea). You can ask questions, too.

Register for the FREE teleseminar, “Blog Your Way to a Book Deal,” by clicking here.

Blogging a book (or blogging) provides one of the fastest and easiest ways to write a book and get noticed by agents and publishers today. Writers who blog or blog a book:

  • publish as they write
  • build author platform while they write
  • get noticed by agents and acquisition editors

It’s a known fact that successful blogs get attention. Blogs like The Julie/Julia Project, Stuff White People Like and Rules for My Unborn Son and the more recent hits like 1001 Awesome Things, The Puppy Diaries, Hack (Tales from a Chicago Cab), and My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress have all ended up in print because, indeed, they were popular. The word got out, and an agent or acquisition editor couldn’t help but hear about them or come across them.

You can write a successful blog, too. And it doesn’t have to include silly photos of you doing odd things with your ex-wife’s wedding dress or posts about you cooking a famous chef’s recipes. You can blog about a unique topic all your own and turn out quality content. In fact that’s what this teleseminar is all about. It’s about producing blog content that’s worthy of a book–or actually writing your manuscript one post at a time using blog technology.

Here’s what you’re going to learn if you join me on the call:

  • Why all aspiring authors should blog
  • what to blog about
  • 10 reasons to blog a book
  • The pros and cons of blogging vs. blogging a book
  • 6 things you need to do before you blog a book
  • 3 things you need for your blog to get discovered
  • The elements a blog needs if it is to become a book
  • How to know if your book has a market or competition

Again, the FREE teleseminar takes place on Tuesday, October 25th at Noon Pacific Time (3 PM Eastern): Register by clicking here.

If you need any more convincing, I’ll just say this: I blogged a book and landed a book deal. Let me tell you how to do it, too.

 

 

(Writer’s Digest Books, April 23, 2012)

To be sure you are notified about any special offers related to the release of this book, please fill out the subscription form to the right of this post.

 

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Filed Under: Blogs Turned Into Books, Resources, Teleseminars Tagged With: , , ,

Blog-to-Book Releases This Month Officially at 2009 Numbers

October 21, 2011 By 2 Comments

My last post said projected that the number of blog-to-book releases were almost at the same rates as in 2009, the so-called height of the blog-to-book craze — about 48 per year. Well, I am happy to say that as of today, I can officially say that this month’s numbers (from what I know) bring us back to the numbers quoted for that year — 50-60 books in one year.

How can I say that? Because I discovered yet one more blog-to-book deal that ended up released in October. That makes five in just one month, which means an average of 60 per year if an average of 5 blog-to-book deals are printed and released each month.

This book falls in he same vein as Stuff White People Like, and is called 101 Uses for My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress and was published by NAL Trade and will be released next week.

According to author and blogger Kevin Cotter of Tuscon, AZ, he asked his ex-wife to take the wedding gown with her when she moved out in 2009, but she didn’t want it. The gown sat in the closet until his family suggested jokingly that he come up with 101 different things to do with it. (Their divorce was finalized last year.)

Cotter made a list he never planned to put into motion but it sparked a blog — My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress. ThereCotter posted photographs of the dress being used in various ways — as a hammock, jump-rope, a dog toy, a grill cover, dental floss, a scarecrow, pasta strainer, and even dental floss. He posted photos , videos, and witty commentary on his website — and landed a book deal.

Go figure.

I’ll say it again. You can do better. You can blog a book…a book that solves a “real” problem, that eases someones pain, that…. Ugh. Okay. Cotter eased his pain and probably a lot of other divorced guy’s pain, too. And he solved the problem of what to do with a left-behind wedding dress.

I still say, you can do better. Blog a book. (Any why not do it during Write Nonfiction in November?)

Want help blogging your book or booking your blog, contact me at namir@copywrightcommunications.com or check out my blogging coaching services above.

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Current Rate of Blog-to-Book Deals Reaching Past Heights

October 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

In my last post, I discussed the fact that many blogs are still getting turned into books–enough to constitute a continued trend, despite what some industry experts have claimed. In fact, I discovered that the figures for blog-to-book releases in October 2011 alone, at least from what I can tell, are equivalent to the height of the blog-to-book craze in 2009.

I reported that three blogs that had been turned into books had been released just this month alone:

  1. Martha Alderson’s, The Plot Whisperer
  2. Dmitry Samarov’s  HACK: Stories from a Chicago Cab
  3. Sarah Wu’s (aka “Mrs. Q) Fed Up with Lunch

However, I then read that prizewinning investigative reporter and now executive editor of The New York Times Jill Abramson’s book, The Puppy Diaries, also was released in October. That makes four blog-to-book deals in one month–that I know of.

If the publishing industry is picking up and publishing an average of four blogs as books per month, that’s 48 per year. In 2009, the estimate was 50 blog-to-book deals completed; another industry expert claimed 60. Either way, this year could easily compete with 2009 at the current rate, especially given the likelihood that more than four blog-to-book deals are being made and published per month.

And anything still goes. I read in Galleycat.com that Tumblr blogs are still hot. For example, Julie Haas Brophy landed a book deal with Villard for her blog, Sh*t My Kids Ruined. A take off on her blog, the book will include  commentary and photos of destroyed objects, rooms, and children.

Here’s the thing. You can do better than creating a blog, and later a book, with funny or stupid photos and a little bit of copy. You can blog a book with value or valuable information. You can blog a book that will touch someone deeply, solve a problem, change a life. Not that there’s anything wrong with simply giving someone a good laugh.

But you can do it, and now is the time. This  is a super time to be a writer. There are blog expos and digital and print book conferences everywhere you turn. Take advantage of the opportunities — and the technologies — at hand. Blog your book now.

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