The stories of successful indie authors, in particular ebook authors, attracting agents and publishers has spawned a common belief that self-publishing represents a viable path to a traditional publishing contract. In fact, if becoming a traditionally published author is your goal, self-publishing your book first may be a huge mistake. It’s true that quite a […]
Is Blogging a Book All You Need to Do to Land a Publishing Contract?
You’ve heard all the stories of bloggers who have landed traditional book contracts, like Christian Landers (Stuff White People Like), Julie Powell (Julie & Julia) and Jenny Lawson (Let’s Pretend This Never Happened). They didn’t do much more than create a successful blog, and publishers sought them out. With a traditional book deal in hand, […]
How to Blog a Finished Novel and Land a Traditional Contract
The two most common questions I hear from fiction writers considering blogging books are: Should I blog full chapters? Should I blog my completed novel? To the first question, I typically answer, no. If you blog full chapters, you are just serializing your novel, not blogging it. Blogging a book involves publishing it in post-sized […]
Does Previously Published Blog Content Turn Away Publishers?
I get asked the same question over and over again. It relates to blogged books, previously published work and traditional publishers. Many aspiring authors considering blogging books feel concern over publishing their the work they intend to include in a book on their blogs. They feel sure a publisher will then consider it “previously published” […]
The Best Business Plan for a Blogged Book (or Any Book)
To conclude this series on building a business around your book, I’d like to write about business plans. Now, I’m not a great one to spout off about business plans, since my business hasn’t had one until recently–and it’s not really quite done yet, if I’m going to be totally honest. (But I’m working on […]
Promotion: Getting A Foreword for Your Blogged Book
There are lots of ways to promote your book. Some of them happen long before you book is published as a print or ebook. Since my book is two or three months away from release, I’m currently gearing up for full-force promotion, which will begin in May. Typically, promotion begins about three months before release, […]
Darren Rowse on Book Deals and Discovery in the Blogosphere
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, […]
How to Write a Book Proposal for Your Blogged Book
When a literary agent or an acquisition editor from a publishing company contacts you about making your blog into a book or publishing your blogged book, you want to be ready. Ready equates to having a book proposal written. Many aspiring authors and bloggers have no idea what goes into a traditional nonfiction book proposal. […]
How a Blog Might Help You Land a Book Deal
So many writers don’t want to blog. I don’t understand why, since I love blogging. I have five blogs. And some writers may not want to blog a book. Maybe you are reading this blog even though you don’t plan on blogging a book–but maybe you’d like to know how blogging will help you land […]
Learn First-Hand How to Go from Blog to Book
I discovered two superb posts about how one blogger’s blog became a book. Now, Gina Trapani, author of Lifehacker, didn’t set out to blog a book, but she offers some great information–not unlike the information I’ve offered–on how to blog a book. She also describes the process she went through to take make her blog […]
