I must have described the difference between blogging a book and booking a blog here on this blog at least 100 times. I’ve done the same on the phone with prospective clients countless times. I do it every time I speak to an audience. Yet, I can find no blog post here on this blog to which I can link other posts or point those in need of a definition. My bad.
So, today’s post will be short and simple: two definitions that are necessary, since blogging a book is inherently different from booking a blog.
Here we go.
Booked Blog
A book consisting of “recycle or repurposed” existing blog posts that were not initially written for the purpose of inclusion in a book; this is the reverse process of blogging a book. Bloggers who have been blogging for any length of time with no intention of writing a book and later decide they do, indeed, want to turn their blog content into a book (or many books) book their blogs. The majority of blog-to-book success stories come from bloggers discovered by publishers because of their successful blogs. They then mined a year or several years of blog posts for those that would best make a book. Sometimes bloggers just toss a bunch of posts into a manuscript with no thought to a content plan of any type. Author and book designer Joel Friedlander coined the term “booking a blog.”
Blogged Book
A book containing a manuscript first written and published on a blog. When you blog a book, you pre-plan the content of a book and then write and publish it post by post on a blog on the internet. This is a deliberate blogging process, not an afterthought of blogging. You produce a detailed content plan that results in the first draft of a manuscript as you write and publish blog posts. The goal is to finish the first draft of your book on the blog while you build a fan base, or author platform, so you can successfully land a traditional publishing deal, produce a completed digital or printed book, sell self-published or traditionally published books, build authority or expert status, and boost your business with both your blog and book.
I hope that clears things up for everyone, like the person who told my new coaching client she couldn’t blog her book because it wasn’t yet written. Huh? The point of blogging a book revolves around blogging it from scratch on your blog post by post form beginning to end (with just a bit of content left out to entice readers and publishers, which is where that content plan comes in).
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If you live in N. California, consider attending this one-time-only small group workshop in the Santa Cruz Mountains on How to Blog Your Way to a Book Deal on October 27. Space limited to 10; only 5 spots left as of 10/11.
Photo courtesy of © Nesrin Öz | Dreamstime.com
I was afraid to do this (make a book out of my published blog posts) because I heard somewhere that Amazon would check for same content and disallow it. This is not so?
Amazon is fine with blogged content. They may put a hold on your blogged book while they confirm that the content is yours. If it is yours, it will go through. I’ve spoken with a rep there.
Yes, yes, yes it does! Wow. I am having so much fun learning all of this new stuff that I need to know and didn’t know before. So I am doing a booked blog now, but my next is better suited to blogged book, in my opinion – because as I am writing it, people seem to enjoy the content – so I thought I’d throw ’em in a book, but I do need to deal with the little matter of the manuscript first. Or maybe just write one book at a time… 🙂 You’ve got me excited again. I needed a little inspiration tonight to finish a blog. THANK YOU! I will be back. Gotta snag that book. Right? 🙂 Cheers.
Glad to hear you are going to both book a blog and blog a book! Good luck and thanks for all the comments, Teeny Bikini!