Nope, sorry, I don't do reviews of blooks. I do, however, examine the bits of information that can be found about the blooks to see if I can discover how they came into being and how much of the blog they came from made it into the blook.
- The part I'm really interested in is how you converted or transformed the blips on a screen to print on paper. And yes, I adhere to the dead tree definition of book. From Warren Meyer's cut-and-paste to create his Coyote Blog -- to yesterday's post about Connor Boyack creating his own script to extract content -- to whatever software next appears on the horizon, I'm willing to look at it and see how effective it might be in making blooks. If you've written a blook, drop me a note with the title and a link to the blog it came from and share your story of your blook's creation with me. Please?
Which reminds me, pyxlin has given me a one year subscription to try out their services, compliments of Jeff Harmon. I'm open to trying other services as well, HINT, HINT, but my opinion is not for sale.
- Another thing that I hope I'm doing here (and hope to do more of) is to figure out what kind of web material translates best into a blook. Success in the Arts by Michael Shumate is made up of essays posted to his blog. This was a deliberate decision - to write his blook on the blog - one chapter at a time. Shumate says, "That kept me on a tight production schedule of writing one chapter a day as well as pointing my mind constantly to be aware that people were reading this who did not know me or any of my verbal shorthand. This, hopefully, contributed to clearer thought and writing on my part." I'll be looking more closely at Blookable Blogs soon.
- Lastly, in my recent Sex Blook Series I quoted from several reviewers at Amazon who complained that the blook that they had purchased was nothing more than a blog on paper. This was NOT true of the very first blooks that I looked at. For instance, USA Today reported on Jeremy Blachman's Anonymous Lawyer that "Only about 10% of the material in his novel is taken from his blog." Bloggishness is something that you'll see me mention frequently. I'm not overly fond of it as some enthusiastic readers of Words in a French Life took exception to.
As stated in the footer of this blog, I intend for Blooking Central to be "Everthing (eventually) that you could want to know about blooks: how to blog with an eye on getting published, software for converting your blog, and publishers/agents/editors that might be interested."
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