Kristin Espinasse's Words In a French Life made the shortlist for the 2007 Blooker Prize. Written in English about French life and French words, the blog does not appear to have translated well into a blook.
The first clue is the peculiar wording of this from Booklist, "Blogger Espinasse has taken a step backward in the evolution of media by converting selected contents of her Web log into a book." Hope your eyebrows went up. Mine did when I read that.
I think two reader reviews at Amazon [I know, I know. It's not like they are "real" reviewers. Although, I'm rather partial to the review MY book got from a not-real reviewer ;-) ] The first is from Andrew S. Rogers (Seattle, Washington). Rogers wrote that as a fan of the blog he was looking forward to the book. But once he had it in hand, he couldn't read the whole thing.
"Unfortunately, despite several attempts to make good progress moving from cover to cover, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I have to conclude that what works very well in a blog just doesn't translate (so to speak) very well to a book."He blames the difficulty on the tiny sections. "I suppose my attempt might have succeeded better had I tried to read this the way I read her blog: one small section at a time, with a day or so in between samples."
Another Seattletonian, [any idea what residents of Seattle are really called? Seattlites? Seattlers? Seattlans?] S. James says rather flatly, "The book was really a series of blogs published on paper." Well, I can see how he/she might feel that way since it's a book based on a blog. But I gather he/she expected more. We've talked about authors who have added new content, at a minimum transitions, just to make the book work as a book. Apparently this was not the case, or the efforts didn't succeed, or the reviewer thinks he/she could have done a better job? Here's additional criticism, "The actual blog is much more interesting because of the photos she includes on her blog. I recommend that next time she publishes her blog that she include the photos."
I can see where S. James gets that idea. It's the same one I got when I looked at Fred First's blook, Slow Road Home. Readers of the blog have certain expectations. Something you might want to keep in mind if you are prone to using photos to enhance your blog. You might be able to effect a compromise as Dusculier, author of Chocolate & Zucchini, did. She wanted all color photographs but settled for a mix: "life and production costs decided otherwise, and the book will have some full-color, and some black-and-white pictures -- the upside being that the price of the book will be lower." Just a thought.
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