Blooking Central

Gold Medal Murder ... by me!

2008-06-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

My newest novel, which happens to be a blook, has just been released! You can purchase either the paperback ($16.95) or the eBook ($5.95) from BookLocker. For those of you who have been paying attention to the hoohah Amazon has caused with BookSurge, you'll know not to try to find Gold Medal Murder there! In fact, BookLocker has filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon. So, if you feel more comfortable ordering from a "regular" online bookstore, try Barnes & Noble.

Twenty Major's blook

2008-03-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

Found this at The Independent, tucked away in an article on the Bloscars (annual Irish Blog Awards):

"The acerbic Twenty Major has been the big winner for the past two years, claiming back-to-back wins in the Best Overall Blog category. Twenty -- whose identity remains hidden behind that pseudonym -- admits that the awards upped his profile considerably.
He even landed a publishing deal for a "blook" (a book based on a blog) -- the first of its kind in Ireland -- entitled The Order of the Phoenix Park, which is due out in a matter of weeks. "The awards have played a really big part in making blogging more mainstream in Ireland and moving it away from the perception that it was something for techies and nerds," Twenty explains.

There's an odd justification for migrating blog characters to print to be found in the Synopsis at Amazon:

"For three years Twenty Major has written a daily blog. Now though comes a tale so bizarre and abominable that mere words on a computer screen wouldn't have been able to do it justice. These words need to be on paper ..."

So much for why the need for a dead tree version :-)

Inquiring minds might be interested in a review of the blook. Crime Always Pays has republished The Dubliner magazine's review by Bridget Hourican. A couple of hints as to what you might learn:

"daily musings average 50 comments" and one post received 481;
"has not just re-worked old blog material into a book" - although same characters;
"doesn't feel like a compilation of musings awkwardly soldered together."

One Woman's Story

2008-02-12T13:48:00.000-08:00

Diane MacEachern has written to share the story of how her blook came into being. Thanks, Diane!

***

My story is pretty straightforward. After the 2004 elections, I became convinced that the greatest opportunities to protect the environment existed in the marketplace. So much pollution, climate change and
wilderness destruction are driven by manufacturing of goods and services people buy; it seemed reasonable to encourage people to buy products that minimized their environmental impact.

I created the Big Green Purse website (www.biggreenpurse.com) first. Consumers, especially women, were telling me that they wanted to do the right thing, but couldn't find the information they were looking
for. I developed the website to make it easy for women to get their questions answered with up-to-date information and easy-to-follow lifestyle suggestions.

The blog is an attempt to offer some editorial perspective on day-to-day issues and news that crop up. It gives me a chance to link to other terrific sources of information, and to get feedback from Big Green Purse readers.

The book expands greatly on the information provided both on the website and in my blog. The book, in fact, is far more detailed - it's over 400 pages of tips, product suggestions and background information. That's way too much information to include in either a website or a blog, but perfect for someone who wants as many ideas as possible.

The book includes much of the information that's on the website or that has appeared on my blog, plus additional details, resource lists, and more. I'm actually going back now and enhancing the website with
information that I found during the book research. Just as well, I'm using the blog and website to update information that exists in the book. So the book, blog and website will all work hand-in-hand to help
consumers make the most environmentally-friendly decisions possible.

As for the mechanics of all this, I developed a book proposal while I was preparing to launch my website and blog. This is my fourth book, so I have a track record as an author. Working with my book agent, I
was able to secure a book contract with the Avery imprint of Penguin/Viking just as I was launching the website (whose content had served as some of the fodder for the proposal) and the blog.

It definitely helped create my overall "author's platform" to have a blog and website up before I wrote the book. I never would have had time to work on them once I got the book contract. Also, having the website and blog create very good marketing opportunities for the book.

I hope this explains the relationship between my blog and book satisfactorily.

Sincerely,

Diane MacEachern
Founder & CEO
Big Green Purse
www.biggreenpurse.com

Big Green Purse

2008-02-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

February's issue of MORE magazine had a page called "Women of the Blogosphere" and wouldn't you know, one of the blogs has just been turned into a blook! The book is Big Green Purse from the blog Diane's Big Green Purse run by Diane MacEachern. According to MORE, MacEachern is getting 3,500 hits a month. She also maintains a companion site, "The World Women Want."

I regret that I haven't been able to find out anything about how the book was put together since the blog doesn't appear to be searachable. I did send her an email, though :-) so we may hear from MacEachern. Wonder if she knows about the Blooker competition coming up?

Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur

2008-01-29T08:30:00.000-08:00

Publishers Marketplace announced the following deal on 28 April, 2006:

Digital media critic and tech-industry veteran Andrew Keen's THE GREAT SEDUCTION: Silicon Valley's Assault on Our Culture and Values, expanding on ideas from his blog (www.thegreatseduction.com) and recent piece for The Weekly Standard criticizing the ideology and cultural consequences of the Web 2.0 movement, to Roger Scholl at Currency/Doubleday, in a pre-empt, by Stephen Hanselman at LevelFiveMedia [literary agency].

I discovered at Amazon, that the working title had been transformed into The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy. I also learned that it had been published in the UK by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Normally I would spend my time trying to establish the relationship between the blog and blook and see if I could pull together snippets from the blog and elsewhere to determine how the blook was fashioned. Unfortunately I couldn't find a search function on Keen's blog. [And to tell the truth, my recent illness has left me too tired to care much :-(] I did want to point out that Nicholas Brealey looks like fertile ground for ferreting blooks. After all, where there's one, there just might be another! The first title I'm going to check into is Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs (She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse)
by Paul Carter.

Adrian Mole: The Lost Years

2008-01-22T08:04:00.001-08:00

I've just finished reading Adrian Mole: The Lost Years.. The inside flap of the dust jacket says: "Sue Townsend is the author of the immensely popular Adrian Mole diaries, ostensibly penned by young Master Mole, which broke sales records in England. Translated into twenty-seven languages, these private reflections gained a cultish following that numbered in the millions."

No, it's not a blook. But Adrian Mole has his own website now. Back in 1982 when the first in the series appeared, blogs were but a blip-to-be on the horizon. I hesitated to mention the book here, since it was not a blook, but there's a couple of things that can be gleaned from it since it reads very much like a blog plunked on paper.

First, I found it difficult reading. I'm reminded of a reader's criticism of Kristin Espinasse's Words In a French Life, which made the shortlist for the 2007 Blooker Prize. Andrew S. Rogers wrote at Amazon: "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 blamed 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." By contrast, Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia, did a masterful job of creating a blook from her posts, supplying the necessary transitional material that never made her blog. [She also eliminated dates and anything else that sounded bloggy - creating a real tale.]

Second, one-liners and slick anecdotes [one reader's opinion -- don't shoot!] don't make for compelling reading. I found nothing to savor or to reflect on. By contrast Irma Bombeck's books were also humorous but had bits which stung or pricked, stuff that made you think -- at least occasionally. I basically ended up plowing through Mole's diary. I'll grant you it was funny but I'm really glad I didn't purchase it.

Lastly, a word of praise. There are two handfuls of characters which are actually fleshed out enough to be recognizable with foibles and personalities of their own. I would have thought that to be a difficult thing using the diary approach.

So if you're considering converting your blog to dead tree format, I'd suggest 1) that you ask yourself if the entries are too uniform to be read one after another in one sitting; 2) that you check to see if there's substance tucked away that could be brought forward a bit; and 3) see if the salient characters can be eliminated or whether they need to be rounded into real contributors.

Good News about Feeling Good

2008-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Pip Wilson who left an announcement in the comments that demands elevation to a post.

"My book, The FeelGood Manual, was done first in my Wilson's Almanac ezine, then put online, then made into a Lulu book. In November, 2007, a publisher found it online, approached me and we signed a publication contract in December. (It will be out in June.) I was surprised, as it's 'Faces in the Street' I've been trying to sell to a publisher!"

Be encouraged, Blook Folk! In case you missed them, here's a link to a letter Wilson wrote me about Faces in the Street and my post about The FeelGood Manual.

Caucus for Corruption

2008-01-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

While it is sometimes true that blogs have been turned into blooks, it is, perhaps, more often the case that blogs provide the genesis, the impetus, rather than specific content. In September of 2006 Publishers Marketplace announced the following book deal:

5 September, 2006
"Blogs for Bush" founder Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan's CAUCUS FOR CORRUPTION, detailing corruption in the Democratic Party, to Eric Jackson at World Ahead, for publication in spring 2007.

Margolis blogs at Blogs for Victory, Noonan at GOP Bloggers. The hype for the book gives us this - "When Democrats made "ethics" the centerpiece of their 2006 campaign, [the authors] knew the public wasn't getting the whole story." The story of how they got together to tell "the whole story" is told in part in the About the Authors at Amazon:

"When Matt Margolis launched Blogs For Bush (www.blogsforbush.com) in 2003, Mark Noonan became a regular contributor. It became one of the top blogs of the 2004 presidential campaign season. Margolis was among the first bloggers to receive media credentials to cover the Republican National Convention. As popular bloggers, Margolis and Noonan have appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and BBC Radio."

How they managed the actual collaboration comes from an interview at Psycmeister's Ice Palace.

LEO: To borrow a term from the liberal lexicon, the two of you come from geographically-diverse locations. What were some of the logistical difficulties encountered in your collaboration efforts?

MARK: Well, we're pretty much on different sides of the country, Matt lives in Massachusetts, and I live in Nevada. So, not only was there an issue with geography, but also a 3-hour time difference. Much of the research was done individually, and we shared it via email and such, but, Matt also came out to Las Vegas twice last year (a week in March, and a week in November), and spent that time working together, adding more material, writing and rewriting...

Note that I'm not calling this a blook, although I'm pretty sure a case could be made for it. [I've got an email in to the authors to see what they have to say.] Caucus for Corruption is the first in a three-book deal according to Margolis's blog.

Brainkerplodeitis

2008-01-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

28-year-old Rachel "Rakie" Keig, author of Terror Island, suffers from brainkerplodeitis, a condition common to many writers. But it's okay ... she works in a hospital ... for the Department of Pathology. Which also can't hurt if your genre is horror! I've been in communication with Keig and, lucky for us, she consented to do a Q & A. Before we start, I'd like to point you to an article, "Just who the hell do I think I am?" and to the About Page of her website.

Blooking Central: You previously mentioned a writing group on Yahoo, called Happy People Have No Stories, which you started in May 2003. The statistics look pretty impressive! Have you belonged/do you belong to other groups? Why start your own?

Keig: "Happy People" is a fairly easy-going writing group. Our aim was to give everyone a chance to post stories and get feedback, but it's also a place for us to chat. We're not a big group but it's a really nice atmosphere - I've met some of my best friends on there. And there have been some great stories posted. We've had horror fiction, fantasy, adventure, romance, comedy, travelogues, poetry... probably something from every genre by now.

Prior to starting HP, I was a member of a bunch of WWE fangroups on yahoo, and I loved posting and reading fanfics there. There's something so fun about posting a story and getting half a dozen people feedbacking
you in the next day or so. It's a real encouragement to keep writing - some of my most productive (albeit probably not best) work was done in fanfics. At one point, me and my friend Jami were posting daily
chapters of our respective stories, and shouting like hell at each other until we got the next one.

We figured that it was a damn good way of getting us to write, so I set up the HP group. I tried looking for an existing group to join, but there are so many on yahoo that it's difficult to know where to start. A few that I looked at seemed pretty good, but once I'd joined I realised there was very little activity on the boards. Setting up our own group was the easiest option.

It's also the thing that's helped my writing the most - if it hadn't been for the constant feedback and help that I've got from those guys, I never would have completed 'Terror Island'. Posting stories serially on the group meant that when I was procrastinating over the next chapter there'd always be someone ready to beat me with a shoe until I got over it, or if a chapter or plot-point was stupid or badly written they'd point it out and help me fix it. And since we're all friends there, I know they'll tell me when I suck!

Blooking Central: You obviously have a website ... do you have a blog? [if not, why not] What's the biggest difference? Which would you recommend for someone who wants to start promoting their fiction online?

Keig: I do have a blog over at livejournal (http://rakiek.livejournal.com/ ) but it's just a personal one and not particularly interesting (unless you're interested in what kind of toast I have for breakfast and stuff like that). I tend to post my stories onto my website and then link to them in my blog, since I'm not sure how many of my friends are interested in reading my stuff.

I read several serial fictions via LJ though - I like the fact that the chapters pop up on your f-list, meaning that you don't have to remember to check websites for new chapters. I'm also fond of the comment tool that blogs provide, especially since it's something that basic websites owned by people with rubbish html skills (like mine) lack. The ability to give/receive immediate comments is the best thing I can think of about online publishing.

For that reason alone, I would say that blogs are probably the best and easiest way of getting work out to people. It's doubly true if you haven't got the time or effort to devote to a website: I'm speaking for myself here, since I'm notoriously bad at the whole html thing, but blogs seem to take the hassle out of it all and let you get on with the important business of writing.

Of course, you'll notice I'm a total hypocrite because I post everything on a website rather than a blog. Why? Well, the sad truth is that it was an exercise in procrastination - once the stories are online they're no longer sitting around on my hard drive and I don't need to fret about getting them published, since people can read them there if they really want. I know that's rubbish logic, and would like to make it clear that I don't recommend trying this if you're wanting to get anywhere in life! Procrastination is not the answer. :)

Blooking Central: How do your readers find you? What things are you doing or have you tried to drive traffic to your site?

Keig: To be honest, I've never done anything to bring people to my site, and I'm constantly surprised that anyone finds it! When I post serial stories on HP I tend to archive the chapters to my site so that the other members can catch up if they miss a chapter. I never had much thought about other people reading it. If I was on a messageboard or chat group and I was talking about a certain story then I'd post a link, but that was as far as I'd get in plugging my work.

One of the main reasons for not drawing attention to my work was that, frankly, a lot of it was rubbish. I've not been writing that long and I'm still learning - I thoroughly agree with whoever said that you've got to write a million words of crap before you start writing anything good. One problem I can see with online publishing is that you can post anything at all, regardless of quality, and get people to read it.

Yes, there's a lot of awesome stuff out there that for one reason or another hasn't been published in dead-tree form, but there's also a lot of stuff that maybe isn't ready to be read. The stuff on my website definitely fell into the latter category, so I never publicised it.

Blooking Central: Congratulations on having your blook published. What can you tell us about the deal? For instance, were you sending out query letters?

Keig: Thank you! :) The deal came about really strangely, and to be honest there was a large wodge of luck involved. I'd just finished a second draft of 'Terror Island' and posted it to my website, and I was quite happy with how it was looking. There was a thread on the Hadesgate messageboard ( www.hadesgateforums.co.uk ) inviting people to post fiction for others to comment on, so I stuck up a link to see what people thought. Garry from Hadesgate read it and really liked it, and I was lucky enough to have caught him at a time when they had room in their publishing schedule for an extra book. So really, I cheated - didn't send any query letters, didn't submit the book via official submissions, just posted a link to my poorly-formatted homepage. And I happened to get lucky.

I don't know what advice you can take from this... maybe just to post your work wherever possible and hope that the right person gets to read it. :)

Blooking Central: What's the prognosis for "Animal Bones" [which is also a full-length novel online]? Are you working at marketing it?

Keig: I wrote 'Animal Bones' about three years ago, and it's been sitting on my website ever since. Although I'm very fond of it, I have no plans to do much with it at this moment in time... except maybe go through and take out a few of the more glaring spelling mistakes. :) I'm very keen on the idea of fiction being available for free online (imo it's one of the greatest things the internet has to offer) and I wanted to have something of mine in the public domain.

Blooking Central: You must be incredibly pleased that your feature-length film, "Horrorcide," is soon to be released. Which leads me to ask about the horror genre in general. It seems to me that readers and writers of horror are a pretty enthusiastic bunch. Does this give you an edge over other forms of fiction on the web?

Keig: We are all indeed very happy with how 'Horrorcide' is going, although it's taking a lot longer to edit than expected (my own fault for not budgeting for an editor). Fingers crossed it'll be ready for release in the early part of this year. There're a lot of people looking forward to seeing it (I know because they keep poking me with sticks and asking when it'll be done), not least because we had the involvement of a whole bunch of horror writers ('Horrorcide' is a five-part anthology movie, in the style of the old Amicus portmanteau films, and five writers donated short stories to the script, including Garry Charles, David Tamarin, Barry J House and Darrell Joyce. We also had some help from veteran horror master Guy N Smith!).

Judging by the horror writers I know, I would have to agree with you - they are definitely an enthusiastic bunch! I'd say that horror naturally lends itself to energy and exuberance, because it's such a visual, visceral thing to write about. Everything can get pumped up to hysterical, over-the-top levels - action, emotions, violence, the works.

That's obviously not to say that horror writing can't be meticulous and carefully written, because some of the most amazing pieces of writing ever have been in the horror genre. But yes, I'll agree that there's definitely a buzz to horror, whether it's writing it or reading it or watching it at the cinema, and, to my mind, that makes it the most fun genre to work in.

As for giving an edge over other fiction... I'm not sure. I suppose that not everyone likes horror, after all. And I'd say that good writing will always win out, regardless of genre - for example, my favourite online book of last year was 'Beasts of New York' ( www.beastsofnewyork.com ) by Jon Evans, which was "a children's book
for adults" about a squirrel exiled from Central Park. It's a fantastic read, an absolute attention-grabber... and completely unlike anything I'd usually go for.

***

I didn't get all the references that Keig used, hey, I'm not 28 any more! ... so I asked.

WWE is the World Wrestling Entertainment guys (formally the WWF) - I used to watch it loads and was a tad obsessed. :D the fangroups are the discussion groups on yahoo and other places where like-minded weirdos can get together and talk about their favourite wrestlers and stuff like that, and fanfics are the stories they write and post (fanfiction tends toward romantic storylines involving favourite characters finally getting together... bless). The f-list on livejournal is the friend's page where you can see the most recent posts by your friends... but thinking about it, that might not even be a real term, I might have just made it up!

Blook Look Follow-up

2008-01-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

Shortly after the Blookable Podcast piece was posted at Future Perfect Publishing I heard from Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, author of Gypsy Teacher series of blooks. In my column I wondered aloud whether or not podcasts could be collected into a marketable blook. Donnelly's response is more in keeping with the traditional approach, print to audio.

"I would actually love to do a recorded version of all the blogs. I really enjoyed volunteering for the Radio Reading Service, and there is nothing similar here.
"I bought a little recorder when we were in Asia, and used it for some interviewing. But when we got back, and the BBC World Service program Outlook asked me for a recorded version of my blog about 'Bathing in the British Isles,' we had a helluva time e-mailing the file. My tech guys at the university said, 'It's such an old system the software doesn't exist anymore.' I said, 'I just bought it last month in Taiwan!'
"So that stopped me. But I think once you get the hang of it, it is easy to do."

In my article I wrote, "Other than interviews or conversations, which may or may not be interesting to read on paper at a later date, I’m guessing that many podcasts are scripted." Donnelly gives real insight:

"You mentioned interviews. For Dixon Donnelly at Sea I did interview students a couple of times. I would write my intro and talk to them a bit ahead of time. Then I would record the intro with them there, and then interview them. I couldn't edit. [One time the phone rang right in the middle. The student picked it up and whispered, 'She's not here' and hung up.] I would then transcribe them--all those years as a transcription typist come in handy!--and edit a bit for the print version."

When I did my post about Hanna Andersson's blook, A Creative Year: the Diary of Hanna Andersson 2006, I left a comment at Diane Gilleland's www.craftypod.com [where I found a podcast of an interview with Andersson] asking if she made transcriptions available from her site. Gilleland wrote to me saying, "I typically do not transcribe the podcasts - there is very little interest in that among my listeners and blog-readers." I'm left to wonder if the topic, crafts, simply doesn't lend itself to printed podcasts. OTOH, for someone like Grandad, who does humor, or someone like Garrison Keillor (Prairie Home Companion), it should be a natural. Right?

Should Suldog Publish?

2008-01-10T14:16:00.001-08:00

Here's the deal. This fella, Suldog, stopped by to thank me for posting about Mushy's Moochings. I followed the link to his homepage and this is what I saw under Archives: 2007 (179) - 2006 (174) - 2005 (61). Said to myself, I did, betcha there's a blook in there somewhere. I queried Suldog about it. He replied, "What I don't know about publishing would fill a book - or a blook. I suppose there's a possibility, but I've never really looked into the details in any meaningful way."

Hmm, methinks he's being modest. Farther down in the sidebar, there's a link to "Some Stuff I'm Proud To Have Written...." There's also a link to "Some Stuff That Will Take You Days To Read." Seems to me like he's taken a serious look at what he's already done and decided it's not crap. That's step number one toward blooker-hood.

Blookable Podcasts

2008-01-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

Tom Masters has just posted the newest "Blook Look" which examines the blookability of podcasts. I used Kathleen Dixon Donnelly's blook, Gypsy Teacher: Dixon Donnelly @ Sea, as a jumping off point. I'm hoping that folks much more tech-savvy than I am will weigh in. We're also looking for blogs that make good use of podcasts that you think would make good blooks.

Hadesgate Publications

2008-01-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote to Hadesgate Publications (Terror Island), a relatively new UK publisher to see if I could discover what might make a blog tick for them.

Blooking Central: I'm trying to encourage bloggers by blogging on ways that they can attract publishers and get their own blook deal. Many publishers have listed quality content as their number one priority, followed closely by high readership numbers and active commenting. The last two practically guarantee some sort of sales! So my first question is this, what would Hadesgate belooking for in blog that they would be inclined to publish? Probably all of the above! But is there something else? Like author participation in other venues? Do they have a voice that's being heard elsewhere? Are they previously published in anthologies or whatever?

Hadesgate: Hadesgate is primarily a horror publisher, we have however touched on sci-fi comedy The Servicing and Maintenance of Wayland Snowball and fantasy for children Soulkeepers both by Steve Dean. So our spectrum of genre releases is diverse.

What would tempt us to visit a blog and indeed see us return for more would be the sheer fun of reading it. The author has mere paragraphs to capture his/her audience. Within a comparatively small word count both the theme of the blog and the personality of the writer has to draw you in. Quite often this combination is electric.

Blooking Central: Do you actively search for fiction online with a view to maybe publishing it? If not, why not?

Hadesgate: Hadesgate don't actively search the web for manuscripts to publish. When we open for submissions we are swamped. The sheer volume of authors out there seeking vindication for their hours of toiling over a pc is truly staggering.

We are aware of some websites that offer to host examples of work for authors, through which publishers can look with a view to publication. We have just never chosen this route.

Blooking Central: There's mixed opinions on whether to take down the blog or website when the material appears in print. Could you give Hadesgate's rationale for taking down Terror Island by Rakie Keig?

Hadesgate: Hadesgate's point of view with regard to Terror Island is that we requested that Rakie take down her online version of the book as soon as we were committed to publishing it. We were amazed at her style, the quality of her writing and added to that was the fact that Rakie is an extraordinarily talented young lady in other areas. Her blook and her enthusiasm was exactly what we were looking for when we experienced a gap in our publishing schedule. She is a real asset to Hadesgate and we are very proud to have published Terror Island.

****

My thanks to Paula Wilson-Buckle for her responses. I'd like to add some comments from a conversation between Steven Deighan and Garry Charles that I found online.

GC: "I have to say that working with Hadesgate has made it easy moving into the writing world and I have to thank them. What was your experience like working with Hadesgate Publications?"
SD: "Nothing but the best. I’d approached them after reading one of their releases and suggested they take a look at my manuscript after one of their authors – you – liked my first book. They agreed to publish it and accepted the work, no fuss. I think what also solidified the deal was that I had my own website and stuff too, so that showed I was serious and committed about the writing scene. Throughout the book’s publishing, I was kept up-to-date continually about the direction of the book and more importantly, how I wanted to see it finalised.
"What surprised me about Hadesgate Publications was the attention given to the project. Its initial publication date was April 2007, but their enthusiasm to see the finished book – and with the help of sufficient finances! – meant it could be brought forward to September 2006, to coincide with the FantasyCon event in Nottingham.
"One other thing I like about Hadesgate Publications is that it offers an online forum, where the other authors in the house could ‘meet’ and post messages to one another (readers can as well)."
***
See my post on Terror Island as well as my exchange with the author, Rachel Keig.

Rakie Keig

2008-01-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

I was able to contact author Rakie Keig (Terror Island) through her publisher Hadesgate.

****

"Paula from Hadesgate forwarded on your email, so I thought I’d write to you directly. First and foremost, thank you so much for your interest in my book! It’s the first thing I’ve ever had published (apart from one short story last year), and I’m still getting used to the idea of people actually reading it. :) Also I’d like to say that I really like your site – I found it a while ago through the Dave Wellington messageboard after you did that great interview with him about blooks.
"Terror Island was indeed online a while ago, although not technically as a blog. It was posted serially on a writing group on Yahoo, and also on my website (along with pretty much everything else I’ve ever written). When Hadesgate decided to publish the novel, they asked if it could be taken down from the website for copyright reasons, so it’s not there anymore, unfortunately."

****

Christmas interrupted our exchange but ...

"Hi again!
"Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, what with Christmas and everything it's all been a bit mental (also I managed to 'break' my internet at home - long story short, I unplugged my router in order to plug in the fairy lights, then couldn't figure out why the internet wasn't connecting) (because I'm a genius, obviously). :D
"Also, apologies for the confusing name stuff! :D 'Rakie' is basically a nickname my mum gave me - I usually claim that it's short for 'Rachel', but really I just like being awkward. :D And yep, the applepastie person is also me! I take it you must have found my website in that case? (I really must tidy up that site at some point, there's a terrible amount of rubbish on there). 'Blood Red Sea' is indeed one of my stories, although it's in the middle of a name change at the moment (it was originally titled 'Vampirates', which I thought was brilliantly clever of me until I realised I'm subliminally pinched it from another book... again, I am a genius).

****

At the bottom of the original email from Rakie [and no, this has absolutely nothing to do with blooks!] there was this:

"RAAUE: SâEUR(tm)preevaadjagh yn Ã§haghteraght post-l shoh chammahâEUR(tm)s coadanyn erbee currit marish as ta shoh coadit ec y leigh. Cha nhegin diu coipal ny cur eh da peiagh erbee elley ny ymmydey yn chooid tâEUR(tm)ayn er aght erbee dyn kied leayr veihâEUR(tm)n choyrtagh. Mannagh nee shiu yn enmyssagh kiarit jehâEUR(tm)n phost-l shoh, doll-shiu magh eh, my sailliu, as cur-shiu fys daâEUR(tm)n choyrtagh cha leah as oddys shiu. Cha nel kied currit da failleydagh ny jantagh erbee conaant y yannoo rish peiagh ny possan erbee lesh post-l er son Rheynn ny Boayrd Slattyssagh erbee jeh Reiltys Ellan Vannin dyn co-niartaghey scruit leayr
veih Reireyder y Rheynn ny Boayrd Slattyssagh tâEUR(tm)eh bentyn rish."

I couldn't help myself - "What's with what looks like gibberish at the bottom of your email?"

"Oh yes, the gibberish at the bottom of the email! I always forget that that gets added on nowadays. It's actually Manx - I'm based on the Isle of Man and work for the Manx government, who decided a while ago to stick a wodge of Manx Gallic onto the bottom of all outgoing emails.
It's technically a dead language (I think the last native speaker died in the seventies), but it's still taught a little in schools. It's quite pretty when spoken but tends to look like a summoning of the Elder Gods when written down. :D"

I'll post a genuine Q & A with Rakie eventually :D In the meantime, check out what her publisher had to say.

Terror Island

2008-01-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

Robert Gould kindly responded with the title and author of the blook which inspired him to begin posting "A Change in the Weather." It's Terror Island by Rakie Keig. Here's what Sarah Dobbs at "Den of Geek" had to say in her review -- note the emphasis on blogginess:

"While the pacing of the book is great, the chapter breaks are a little too frequent. Some digging around on Google revealed that that’s probably because the chapters were initially posted online, but it’s something that should have been edited before the print version emerged. Particularly since the book is a large non-standard paperback size, which means that most of the chapters are only about 4 pages long. Many of the new chapters pick up exactly where the previous ones left off, which soon starts to feel like you’re watching a movie with far, far too many advert breaks. Mind you, it makes it easy to find a convenient stopping place if you need to put the book down for whatever reason."

One other thing worth noting is that in her Acknowledgments Keig mentions Mr. David Wellington and the Hail Horrors Board. Regular readers will recognize Wellington from his four blooks! [and the link in the sidebar under Online Fiction].

The blook is from Hadesgate Publications, a relatively new UK publisher who specializes in horror. I had a chance to chat with them and I'll post it shortly. In the meantime read what the author had to say.

Could Have Been a Blook

2008-01-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

Clare Christian of The Friday Project shared an interesting story of how a purchase of a drum of olive oil in an LA deli led to a blook called The Dolce Vita Diaries: Stories and Recipes from an Italian Olive Grove. Christian read about the couple in a Sunday news supplement. Essentially, Jason Gibb and Cathy Rogers came up with an Adopt-an-Olive-Tree scheme to generate capital (their website is Nudo). Here's how Christian explains the project:

"Under this scheme anyone can adopt their own tree and the reward for this adoption is twice-yearly parcels of produce from your tree. You can even go and visit your tree and give it a little hug if you feel so inclined. The olive oil is delicious and you get little olive oil soaps too. After reading the article I adopted one straight away and then contacted Cathy and Jason to ask if they would write about their experiences for The Friday Project. They would and did and the result is The Dolce Vita Diaries."

I was unable to find anything that was posted online so I'm guessing that this is not a blook. But if you think about it, it could have been. Anyone doing a similar project - moving across the world, changing careers -- could easily blog their day-to-day adventures, pick up newspaper coverage along the way, and hopefully be asked to convert their writings into a blook. If you or someone you know has done that, let me know.

Defending the Blook

2008-01-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

When I started Blooking Central it was because I was intrigued by the concept of creating a book from blogs. The blogs that I was aware of (and particularly the blogs that I maintained) were such a random mishmash of topics and styles that I couldn't begin to imagine trying to make them into anything coherent like a book.

That's the crux of my defense of the definition that a blook is something that is hard copy -- dead tree. I wanted to know how a blog could morph into print. What did a writer need to do with all that content that they had generated over weeks, months and years? Did writers even know that their blogs had the potential for a different audience?

I blithely began looking at popular works, many of them entered in the Lulu Blooker Prize competitions. I discovered many things but perhaps the most important was this -- most fiction blooks, identified by their author as blooks, had appeared on blogs or websites in pre-meditated serial fashion. There was no mystery here as to how the text then transitioned to print. Even if the content was revised, the narrative arc survived.

I confess that this area has little interest for me. My quest was to discover how to take blog content, those random musings, those conversations with readers, etc., and transform them into something a reader would want to own. Which is why I've spent many posts on software and organizing content. Unless an ordinary blogger (not a fiction author) is blogging thematically, the question of clustering content is huge.

Have I still not made my case? Let me try to explain another way. It's the process of manipulating the daily data that intrigues me most and the objective of producing a print product provides a boundary necessary for me. This is also important when I look at traditionally published blooks because I can feature agents who have seemed to have focused on blog content like Kate Lee and Elizabeth Weed. I can publish letters from publishers like The Friday Project who have a keen interest in blogs. Keeping print in my definition allows me to explore what a blookable blog might look like.

Think about it for a moment, why make an eBook of your blog when the blog is there? Unless you're talking about making money. Which doesn't seem to be the driving reason behind authorship. I would guess that the majority of blook authors that I've looked at (over 250 now) are most concerned with the quality of the work that they're producing, then the reception of that work, and lastly financial gain.

But maybe the bottom line is that I'm just more comfortable with a print parameter. An eBook can be continually revised. Kathleen Dixon Donnelly mentioned that just the other day in my Q & A with her. An author can call his or her work "done" but because of the lack of physicality, it doesn't have to be. With a dead tree version it does.

So there you have it. One old lady's opinion on why a blook should be a printed version of blogged content.

Follow-up

As a courtesy I sent a copy of the above off to Carl Jeffries, who sparked this defense (see My Definition of Blook). Here's his response:

"Now that you've explained your reasoning, I find it to be a quite valid argument. Now you're talking about WHY to make "blook" your definition, not just that it should, you know? I can see a lot of value in that transformational process.
"I'd like you to put a short bit by me at the end if you would, basically saying:
"Hey, I can totally see the value of your definition now, and it sounds like you're really onto something. That transformational process of online-journal-to-print is pretty darn neat. I think we're talking from two different angles here, as I'm totally in love with the idea of web fiction, so I don't want to see "blook" seem to disparage online web fiction. But I think whoever wins the battle for the word "blook" (if it doesn't end up meaning both) will find another word for theirs. And who wants an awkward word like "blook" anyway?"

My Definition of Blook

2008-01-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

I'm never surprised that the definition of blook which I use here at Blooking Central is challenged by those who wish to reserve it, or, to be fair, simply apply it, for/to online fiction. But being a bit of a curmudgeon, I have clung stubbornly to my initial position, more out of obstinacy than from philosophy. However, I've recently exchanged emails with a gentleman (Carl Jeffries) who said that he didn't see the value of my definition. Which caused me to wonder if I could justify -- in a "reasoned" fashion -- just why I have been insisting that a blook is not a blook until it hits print. With his permission I am reproducing our discussion. I'll conclude with what I think are my reasons for being so persnickety.

Carl asked for my definition; I replied, "At Blooking Central I use the definition put in place by the Lulu Blooker Prize competition:

"A blook is a book with content that was developed in a significant way from material originally presented on a blog, webcomic or other website. This material includes the website's characters, themes, ideas or outline that ends up getting published as a printed book."
"n. blook. A printed and bound book, based on a blog (cf. web log) or website; a new stage in the life-cycle of content, if not a new category of content and a new dawn for the book itself."

Carl: So your definition (the Lulu definition) is a physical book based on a blog? That definition and the definition I use (something like "a long form work published in a blog") are both in the Wikipedia entry for "blook" (as well as an interesting but unrelated third definition). I strongly disagree with the Lulu definition, as it seems to me to be living in the past where something can't be a blook if it's solely in digital form. My definition of blook is broader, not excluding works like those in Pages Unbound. Granted, most of the Pages Unbound stories suck, but, for example, poetry doesn't become poetry because it's published by a publisher. Especially since Lulu itself has no bar for entry and publishes plenty of dreck themselves. I just don't see the point in rejecting blogs that are long-form works on the basis that they're on the internet instead of on the page. Right now, for instance, I'd say Gold Medal Murder is a blook, even if it's not published yet. (It isn't yet, is it?) [CH: not yet]

Of course, we'll see what the definition ends up being in, say, five years. (Which makes it silly to me that the OED is considering accepting it as a word, seemingly forgetting a lot of internet words that have fallen by the wayside.)

Blooking Central: The subject of the definition I use has received its share of criticism. But if you take a look at the two
posts that I've referenced, maybe you'll be better able to understand my position - here and here.

Carl: Read your articles. I know it's semantics to a large degree, but I wholly disagree with you. I don't think something online can't be a book. You can have your novel online. Hell, you can have your novel in manuscript form, and it's still a novel. If you want to define a "book" as having to be a hard copy, well, I guess you can do that... but even in that case, doesn't "blook" have the same problem as "eBook"? Why does one letter have to make something NOT a book in one instance and a type of book in another?

I think the more important subject is the vast difference between an eBook and a book-on-a-blog (whatever you wanna call it in its non-dead-tree form). An eBook is the final book in download form. You can purchase eBooks at Lulu, or they're often available for download from an author's site. A blook by MY definition is the work when it's in blog form, often not yet completed.

I'm just not sure I see the value of your definition. You're arguing that your definition is the right one, but I'm not sure why it's the most useful definition. Why not call online blog-books "blooks" too. Then when they're published in dead-tree-form, they're still blooks, only now you can put them on your shelves. Instead you're left calling online blog-books "online blog-books" or "serialized web books" or something. Unless you have a better term? And a reason for using a different term?

I guess my definition focuses more on the works themselves, and you want a separate word for the hard copy of something and the online copy of it, whereas in my mind they're the same thing, and in fact, with decent advertising, the online version will be read more and make more money than the print version.

***

Next up, my defense.

1st Blook from Jerusalem

2008-01-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

I just caught this announcement at Now Public:

"Usually Blooks are virtual books that are published on air as blogs. Yesterday a book based on a blog was published IN PRINT in Jerusalem. The blog is magendavidalbum.blogspot.com and the book (only in Hebrew, Star of David Black & White) is a summary of the most interesting blog-postings arranged by subjects like: the meaning of the Star of David, it’s history, it’s usages in daily life and in arts in various cultures, and there’s a chapter about the yellow badge, which had the shape of the six-pointed Jewish Star during the Third Reich."

You may remember that I wrote about this one when it was a blook-to-be. I was struck then by the idea of "evergreen posts." For photos of the blook's cover see the blog in English. [I realize that last sentence doesn't make much sense -- photos are photos and not bound by language. It's just that I don't read Hebrew.]

Cross+Hairs

2008-01-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

It turns out that J. Paul Mashburn (The Laugh & Times of Mushy) wrote another blook, Cross+Hairs.

I only found a few promotional posts at the blog so I incorrectly assumed that it was not a blook. Mashburn set me straight: "Cross+Hairs was written several years ago offline, but has been updated time and time again. I started Cross+Hairs at http://cross-hairs.blogspot.com much later, but at one time it was all available at the site ... a complete posting of the book. I simply began by posting one chapter at a time, hoping to build interest and a readership following. Only five "teaser" chapters are posted."

Publicity

Until now I haven't had a clear look at what folks do to promote their blooks once they're in print. With Mashburn we have an excellent opportunity to compare two descriptions of Cross+Hairs.

I found a press release posted at PRWeb. I was intrigued to discover that it was as much a hype for Lulu as it was for the blook! But let's look at the difference in the descriptions. The first comes from the blog:

"Henry Maddux fought off his evil thoughts and urges as long as he could. He suffered physical abuse from his step-father, the taunting and teasing of school mates, a broken heart from one he thought understood and cared, the horrors of Vietnam as only a sniper could experience it, and the everyday greed around him. Finally when everyone, everything, and even God seemed against him, he could no longer control the voices. He had to cross out the evil doers and
put his mine [sic] to rest. He crossed them out with the "X" of his scoped high-powered rifle."

The second is from the press release:

"Cross+Hairs is a God’s eye view of the relationship of two childhood friends that grow up on different sides of the law. The book follows them through adolescence, Vietnam, and the events that lead up to a final confrontation in adult life.
"J. Paul Mashburn wrote Cross+Hairs years after meeting a Marine Sniper in Vietnam who told true life horror stories he lived in the 'bush'. It made him wonder how such young men could ever leave such experiences behind and live a normal life."

Which book would you buy? Why? Which bits are the best in each and can they be combined to create a killer [sorry!] advertisement?

Mushy Smooching

2008-01-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

I suppose if I do it this early in the season I may get it out of my system ... but I'm not making any promises! The blog in question is called Mushy's Moochings but the address looks like this: http://mushysmoochings.blogspot.com/ Doesn't that look like mushy smooching? And while I'm at it, I'd best declare myself in favor of mushy smooching!

J. Paul Mashburn describes his blog: "This blog is basically an autobiography of the author and is best read in reverse order, so visit the archive links at the bottom of the sidebar, and start at the beginning." Darned inconvenient, but I've said so before. Here's what he has to say about the blook - the book based on his blog:

"Let me begin by saying that The Laugh & Times of Mushy is a compilation of blog post from this Mushy's Moochings. The blog was started in early 2006 with the express intention of leaving some documentation of "who and what" I am/was to my children and grandchildren."

Aha! Now I understand why I got the heads-up from Going Like Sixty. This is a boomer blog and ipso facto [what does that mean?*] the blook is a boomer blook. With his limited vision of his audience, it's not surprising that Mashburn chose to go with a hardcover version from Lulu.

"Unfortunately, the hardcover issue is available for $35.23 now, but, like I say, it has not been proofed, and a cheaper copy is forthcoming. That sounds like a lot, but think about it, where else can you get a final version copy of a single book one copy at a time? It cost money to provide that capability!
"Inside, you will find 104,256 words, 290 pages, made up of over 118 chapters, many of which were posted here."

This is Mashburn's second book with Lulu which means he knew a bit about what he could anticipate as far as sales revenue:

"Incidentally, I have had Cross+Hairs [fiction] out there for almost 2 years and I recently received $12.23 from Lulu, revenue from all the sales (most of which were mine) up to now! Man, what should I buy with that kind of cash?!"

Deciding To Publish

Mashburn summed up his decision to publish his blog this way:

"I think I’m done, at least here. I do not feel comfortable writing much else. I think I would be invading the privacy of those living souls that were around me after my first marriage through today.
"So, I think I shall now compile what I’ve written here into a 'self-published' book that will serve as documentation my life. Maybe one day someone will want to look back on my life in hopes of discovering what kind of person I was.
"However, the question in my mind now is should I go back and make it a fictional account and embellish it, or should I publish it just as I’ve written it? What do you think?

The question he raises is legitimate. Can we come up with some pro's and con's on either side?

[I want to remind readers as well as Mashburn that the next Lulu Blooker Prize competition will be announced sometime this first quarter of 2008.]

________
* Ipso facto is a Latin phrase, directly translated as by the fact itself, which means that a certain effect is a direct consequence of the action in question, instead of being brought about by a subsequent action such as the verdict of a tribunal (Wikipedia).

Job-blog Blooks

2008-01-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Occupational blogs occasionally make for great reading, such as Jeremy Blachman's "Anonymous Lawyer." Even though it was fiction, it read as if true and garnered great numbers of readers and commentors. Non-fiction occupational blogs also attract their share of readers. Some are spiced with delicious personal anecdotes while others rant and agitate for change. Both approaches leave the author open to being fired [see "Lady bloggers who got fired"] so most are written in anonymity. Some of the more successful job-blogs converted to blooks include: Diary of an On-Call Girl (police), It's Your Time You're Wasting (education), and Life and Death in London (ambulance).

Coming late on the scene is a blook by a teacher who only taught one class, one day a week -- Dr. Kathleen Dixon Donnelly's Gypsy Teacher: 'Every Wednesday?!' The Journal of a Teacher in Search of a Classroom. Part of the attraction, to me, is Donnelly's age. When she began the blog in 2003 ,she was a 50+ unemployed academic. 50+ may be a great time to reinvent yourself according to MORE magazine, but the reality is that duress doesn't inspire much -- other than fear -- for most folks in their fifties. The blog begins with her having been given notice:

"As of tomorrow, I will no longer be employed full-time.
"Last year I was notified that my contract as an assistant professor at a large state university would not be renewed as of December 26, 2002. Don’t you love academia? They don’t have to give you a reason, but they have to give you a year’s notice. In how many professions do you know for sure that you have a job for a year?"

Donnelly explains the title with an anecdote:

Author Robert Parker's wife: "Wait -- they're going to pay you an obscene amount of money to show up once a week and teach one class on Wednesdays. And you don't know whether you should take the job?!"
Parker: "Yeah, but every Wednesday... ?!"

The blook, self-published through Lulu, is 172 pages. But the thing which struck me was that Donnelly chose the 8½ by 11 inch layout and the coil binding! What's up with that?

Speaking Academically ...

2008-01-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

The bio blip on Kalynne Pudner, "The Philosopher Mom," astounded me. She's "A Ph.D. mother of nine and teacher of 600+ [Auburn] university students." Which element most surprised me? Her blog "offers philosophical commentary on sundry aspects of the maternal/academic lifestyle." I can imagine.

She left a comment recently: "Wait -- I was planning on compiling a bunch of my posts into a book. Someone else has already come up with the idea? Darn." I checked her blog and sure enough, she had posted about it. It was tucked away toward the bottom of "Choleric Addendum to Fiction on My Mind."

"As I post this query, I'm thinking, wouldn't it be loverly if all the agents in the U.S. could see this blog, read the LOADING query and ALL BUT DISSERTATION intro, and decide for themselves, with a click of the mouse, whether "the project is a good match for our list right now"? Instead of forcing poor, harassed, needing-to-get-ready-for-Christmas-and-oh-yeah-do-some-laundry authors to research websites and send a multitude of personalized queries to agents who will find it not a good match for their list right now, a clearing house site with posted queries could let agents browse and respond at will. Kind of like Amazon.com in reverse."

I can't decide if the novel? LOADING... PLEASE WAIT is being posted in pieces within Pudner's blog or if it's a separate entity online or even offline. But here's how she describes it:

"LOADING is essentially my tenth baby, and having been properly ooh'ed and aah'ed over by the friends and relatives, it is ready to be introduced to the commercial world."

As for All But Dissertation, I'm reasonably sure that that is being constructed offline. But then I didn't search the whole blog. [You know I don't read the blogs - I search them! Of course, I don't read the blooks that I examine either. Remind me again what it is that I do here :-) ]

The question I have, no, really, is this: if the blog is touted as a mix of philosophy and parenthood, have we got a market for a blook? How would we know? What criteria should we use? Or shall we toss caution to the wind and take our chances? And just what does that mean? Hold out for an agent on the two fiction projects but self-publish the blog? I wonder what Pudner's plan is. And whether or not she's looked at my posts about agents.

Ha! Gypsy Teacher Q & A

2008-01-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

In some recent posts about blooks and academia the name of author Kathleen Dixon Donnelly came up. She's a Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University. Dr. Donnelly graciously agreed to take time out from her holiday celebrations to do an interview. She uses Ha! a lot, hence the title of the post :-)

***

Blooking Central: I'm a bit confused. I found this statement (at Lulu) regarding Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in 'Brum: "These are the entries from my three Gypsy Teacher 'blooks'." Which means that there are four total? Will you give me all the titles?

Donnelly: In chronological order they are:

Gypsy Teacher: Dixon Donnelly @ Sea
Gypsy Teacher: Every Wednesday?!: The Journal of a Teacher in Search of a Classroom
Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in ‘Brum

After completing those three, I excerpted the blogs that were more specifically about teaching [not all are] and pulled them together in a fourth book, called Gypsy Teacher. Figured that would be a bigger seller [Ha!].

Then I posted Gypsy Teacher: Dixon Donnelly in Asia.

I have revised Gypsy Teacher to include excerpts from this, but haven’t had time to post it up there yet.

BC: [an aside] See! I was right to ask -- there are FIVE blooks!

Donnelly: The most recent completed blog is Gyspy Teacher: A Yank Searches for a House In ‘Brum which I am in the process of pulling together into a blook. There isn’t much in there about teaching, so I don’t think any of it will be in the Gypsy Teacher ‘collection.’

BC: [another aside] Aha! Number six is in the works.

Donnelly: The only blog I am doing now is the monthly one on my Lulu site about the [American] presidential election. Not sure what I’ll do with those, but wanted to chart the changes in opinion as we head towards election day. Also thought those searching for ‘Hillary Clinton’ or ‘Barack Obama’ might find me.

If it’s confusing to you, I should go back to the Lulu site and see if I need to re-word to make it more clear.

BC: Have the blogs on which the blooks were based all survived? Can I reference them with links?

They should be up there, on blogger.com:

http://www.dixondonnellyatsea.blogspot.com/
http://www.everywednesday.blogspot.com/
http://www.gypsyteacher.blogspot.com/ (A Yank in Brum; the first time I used the ‘gypsy teacher’ title)
http://www.dixondonnellyinasia.blogspot.com/
http://www.ayanksearchesforahouseinbrum.blogspot.com/

The last two were originally posted on my lulu blog, but when each one was finished I re-posted it, by copying and pasting, on blogger.

Haven’t checked any of those out for a long time, but someone just contacted me who found the Every Wednesdays postings about The Magdalene Sisters movie, so I think they are still up there.

BC: I've spent quite a bit of time at my blog talking about the actual nitty-gritty of blook production. Many folks craft their posts in a word processor before posting, which means that they generally have copies which can be manipulated off-web, as it were, to create their blook. Did you? If not, will you share how you managed to turn web content into print? Again, most folks have found it simplest to cut and paste, but you might have worked a different magic!

Donnelly: Definitely write in MS Word and then copy and paste. For the blogs and the blooks. I don’t trust the site to not eat what I’ve written, and I revise quite a bit. ‘It’s not the writing, it’s the re-writing.’ Forget who said that.

When I finish writing, and re-writing, I have My Irish Husband Tony read it. He loves everything I do [smart man] so if he mentions anything that doesn’t sound right, I know I have to change it. Then I post on the blog site, and strip into an e-mail message to send to my lists through kaydee@gypsyteacher.com. People send me links to their sites all the time, but I never take the time to go there. So I just send it along with a message, and they can read it if they like. I’ve gotten very encouraging comments.

BC: [a thought] The lady has lists that she emails to. Do you? I don't. Should I?

Donnelly: After the whole blog is finished, I paste each one separately into the format for the blooks, which I have kept consistent. Because MS Word isn’t really a layout program, it’s a bit tricky. I like the two-column format in Times Roman with a one-column Garamond heading, but sometimes it’s a pain. I then go through and edit like crazy. Once you know how the blog ends, there is a lot of leeway to go back and edit the earlier ones to create a consistent narrative. It’s amazing how much foreshadowing occurs in real life! I never change the facts or add new information, but the emphasis or the way I refer to something or someone might change.

When I think it’s finished, I print it out [thanks to my university printer] and pencil edit in hard copy, making sure the pages all look good--no widows, orphans, etc. Then I read backwards to proofread. Then I read it through again.

BC: [Anybody need me to interpret "widows and orphans"? Also, please note -- proofreading backwards is an excellent way to catch those nasty little errors. So is reading out loud.]

Donnelly: So no magic, just writing, re-writing, laying out, re-writing, proofreading again. Then Spell Check and proofread again.

BC: If you did not address revising in the question above, will you now?

Donnelly: Re-writing, re-writing, re-writing. Go away. Come back. Re-write some more. Proofread, Spell Check, proofread again.

BC: Can you give my readers some sense of the popularity of your blogs? Traditionally-published blooks seem to need a high readership and very active commenting.

Donnelly: I think I have a small but appreciative audience. My Irish Husband Tony, some very good friends in the States, and one or two people searching the net who go far enough down their Google list to find me. I can tell which of my friends and family have been reading by the questions they ask me. ‘So did you ever buy a house?’ ‘So where are you working now?’ etc. are dead giveaways. I’ve discovered that some friends read every one and my brother has read nothing!

BC: Please explain why you chose to self-publish. I was most surprised to find an academic that did not shun the stigma attached to both self-publishing and to blooking! It convinces me that blooks are more mainstream than the media is giving credence.

Donnelly: Chose! Ha! Because no one has chosen to publish me! In fairness, I have never formally submitted any of the Gypsy Teacher blooks to an agent or publisher. I put them up there as a sample of my work, figuring it was free to do, so what the heck?

I am actually a very un-academic academic. I received tenure at the first university I taught at full-time without publishing; then got a tenure track job at a large state university but was ‘not renewed’ with the implication that I should have published more [while teaching a full schedule], and now teach in the UK where there is no concept of ‘tenure’ [no summers off either!]. Those aspiring to ‘professor’ status are expected to, and given time to, publish; but those of us happy with Senior Lecturer, just teach more. Fine with me.

If you are wondering about the Ph.d., I did it on ‘writers who hung out together.’ I did publish one article in a small academic journal [I knew the editor], and submitted proposals for a full, but non-academic, book about them to agents and publishers to no avail. So I gave up. I have put up another Lulu site with my writings about my writers, but it’s a work in progress and not really suitable for public exposure just yet. I’m working on it.

So my gypsy teacher writing is very un-academic. Sometimes my fellow professors find one of my letters to the editor in The Guardian, or a piece about me in the local paper and are surprised to find that I am a writer as well as a teacher.

BC: I'm tickled that there is another blook in the works. That must mean that you're finding some monetary success. It does, doesn't it? :-)

Donnelly: Ha! Again. Zilch. Most of the sales I’ve had, and they are few and far between, are for the handbook I put up on Lulu about how to get publicity. ‘Hands on Public Relations.’ Every once in awhile one of those sells. And a friend or two has bought a Gypsy Teacher, but to be honest, if they express interest I just send them the Adobe file. Not a good business model.

I wouldn’t blame it on Lulu though. To get sales there you really have to work it, and I just haven’t been consistent enough. Over the summer I spent a lot of time on it, but then classes started again. I got an ISBN for Hands on Public Relations and now have to follow up and get it on Amazon, etc. but it just takes time.

Tony and I have a goal of ‘retire on the royalties,’ but right now that $91.40 isn’t going very far. My dream is to get a regular column either here or in the States, and then have a real publisher collect them. Then, of course, my back catalogue will be worth millions and we’ll buy that seafront mansion in Miami.

BC: Any thoughts on why or why not you should turn the political posts into a blook?

Donnelly: Not really sure how they will go. If I included enough about being a Democrat Abroad, they could fit with the Gypsy Teacher theme. I started them really hoping I could interest the Guardian or the Observer in publishing them monthly, so I was going to be totally neutral. Didn’t even get a nibble.

So I decided to post them myself, and the second one, about being at Democrats Abroad in London, fit in. Not sure what direction they will take. Planning to interview an Iowa friend in January about the caucus and write about the Democrats Abroad primary in February. I’m open to suggestions about this one.

BC: Thanks so much! Be sure to let me know when the new blook is out.

Sit with You Interview

2008-01-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

I contacted Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jennifer Byde Myers, authors of Can I Sit with You?, to get the inside scoop on their project (see initial post). Although Jennifer wrote the responses for the Q & A, I've been assured that Shannon would add to her comments if she got a chance or felt the need to further clarify.

Blooking Central: I'm particularly interested in how blogs/websites become books (blooks).

What can you tell me about the number of submissions that you sifted through (if you did) to arrive at the ones that made the book? How did you do the sifting?

Jennifer Byde Myers: We were very lucky to have a great selection of stories sent in. Most of them were the appropriate length (we asked for about 1000 words) and required only minor editing. Some submissions were very short, more like anecdotes. On the blog we used these shorter stories as "Sunday Shorts", but chose not to include them in the book itself. We only asked a few people to work out parts of their stories for clarity, and most of those writers sent them back with good changes. We heavily edited a few of them, but we included nearly all of the full length stories from that first month.

Blooking Central: How were they arranged in the book? Did you try to follow some sort of themes or to alternate brave with
funny?

Jennifer Byde Myers: We placed the stories in the book as they appeared chronologically on the blog. We thought carefully about placement throughout each week that we posted (alternating themes and level of pain etc.) so that served us well to only think once.

Blooking Central: Did you contract with your submitters for the rights to their stories or did you go with the implied consent? Several authors have handled this in many different ways!

Jennifer Byde Myers: If you look at our submission guidelines we asked for the rights to use the stories in whatever way we needed, but did not take away any rights from the authors. They may still publish their stories in other places if they choose. During the final process before the book was printed, we emailed each of the authors again and asked them for their full name (not just nom de plume) and their consent once again. We are considering their final email a legal agreement.

Blooking Central: How have sales been? Did the authors whose work was included get freebies? Have you done anything unusual
to promote sale of the book? (web press releases, posts to forums, conferences, etc.) I'm also curious about how your blog has been promoted :-) I realize that I have an inordinate amount of curiosity!

Jennifer Byde Myers: Sales were brisk in the first week, (a couple hundred) and we have sold an average of 8-10 books per day since then. We sent a "freebie" to a just couple of the people who contributed great time and talent, but "freebie" means paid for by Shan and Jen, so we have not given away nearly as many as I think would help sales over all. The authors had to purchase their own copies. Sad eh? But ALL proceeds of this edition are going to our Special Ed PTA, SEPTAR.org So it is a good thing to buy a book! I think it will be a nice steady income for the PTA.

In terms of marketing, we have been slow to do any of the normal routes. I haven't even written a damn press release! We have once again used the power of the Internet, and the exuberance of our friends to share the book. There are links to the book on our personal blogs, on the SEPTAR website, and at the bottom of every email I send. We've placed the book locally in coffee shops and a few local bookstores may carry them in the new year.

Blooking Central: In my post I guessed that there would be sequels. Was I right? What would/will you do differently, if anything?

Jennifer Byde Myers: I think we would like to do a sequel... or two, or three... there are so many stories to be told. Catharsis for all!

Blooking Central: Looking at your project in general terms, what sort of advice would you give to another blogger who hopes to
create a blook? I've looked at lots of blooks that are collections - teenage angst in poetry, confessions and camp stories.

Jennifer Byde Myers: There are a couple of things that have made this project a success. Shannon and I are a great team. It was very nice to have someone be in charge of something at all times. Divide and conquer or something like that, right? We also kept things streamlined by creating a narrow focus. It is much easier to decide what information to include and how to effectively communicate about the project because the guidelines we set up were so clear to each of us from the get go. It also helps, I think, that the proceeds of this edition go directly to support our kids' special ed PTA (http://www.septar.org/); people like to be a part of the greater good.

It has been a very gratifying project. This world can be mean and cold, and yet at every turn we found another friendly face eager to join our little community.

***
I appreciate Ms. Myers taking the time to share with us. If you are the author of a blook, drop me a line and I'll be happy to help hype your work AND to pick your brain :-)

Year-End Review

2008-01-02T07:06:00.001-08:00

Here's a quick update on the last two months of 2007 here at Blooking Central.

I continue to write a monthly column for Future Perfect Publishing. The November "Blook Look" was
Business Blook as Beta Publishing

In December I spotlighted a collaborative multimedia venture, The Book of the Enemy, that caught my attention even though it just missed the definition I use for blook.

Blooks I've Looked At

YARG!
A Creative Year: the Diary of Hanna Andersson 2006
Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in 'Brum
Reversal: When A Therapist Becomes A Patient
Masuk Barisan
Bukan Dugong Biasa
The Hand-Me-Down PC
Build Your Own PC
Print is Dead
Sulekha Select
India Smiles
Zero to Superhero - Get Stronger, Faster, Leaner, Smarter
Can I Sit with You?
65 Poor Life Decisions
Inside System Storage - Volume I
Can We Trust the Gospels?
Miss Abigail's Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage
Digital Dish
Dave's Timely Adventures
Ya Can't Let Cancer Ruin Your Day: The James Emails
Marketable Depression
Reason and Rhyme 2006 Anthology

Blooks-to-be

Tanah Seberang and Gallery of the Absurd

Letters

I welcome letters from authors, publishers, agents, you-name-it as long as they can further the discussion of what makes for a blookable blog and how a blogger can successfully transition from internet to print.

Q & A with Eric Anthony Galvez
Galvez, Reversal: When A Therapist Becomes A Patient
Herb Eash Mission Saddam
Lori Smith A Walk with Jane Austen
Steve Stack's (It is just you; not everything's shit) process

Series

I only managed one series of posts but it's one that I'm particularly proud of: "A Web Comic Goes Blook" in 5 parts.

Shortest Blook Ever?

2007-12-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

I've just discovered what may the shortest blook-to-be in all these months of blogging about blooks. I've no idea what the treasure will be called, but the blog is Yanalogues. It's written by the mother, Karina, about her toddler, Yana.

The blog began on Oct. 9 and just over 2 months later, Mom's giving up. Nine posts only - and that includes the last one which announces:

"So I've decided this will be my last entry. I'm not so comfortable with being so public about Yana and my life, my emotions, etc. I used to be so private and quiet and I miss that. PLUS Blogging has just stopped being fun and well...once the joy is gone what's the point? The next FUN thing I'm going to do is make Yanita and the Yanalogue sites BLOOKS. I'm going to print them and get them bound into one or two books. I'm so excited! They're TOTALLY going into Yana's time capsule for safe keeping."

So, here's the question. You have a minimal amount of text, lots of photographs, where do you begin creating your blook?

The answer for me, since it's a Blogger blog, is to head on over to Blog2Print and give the previewer a whirl. Using Karina's URL I did just that. Cute cover - which the software created (and which can be customized) - $26.95 hardcover, $21.95 paperback.

No, I don't get any compensation from Blog2Print! It's just that to use the free versions of Blurb's BlogSlurper or LABAsprise's BlogCollector, also free, you have to download the software to your machine. I wasn't willing to do that just for giggles. [Maybe YOU are ... would you be willing to share your results?]

On the other hand, if Karina had been truly concerned about privacy, I could wish that she had checked out the pyxlin option before starting her blog. The results are pretty impressive.

Your chance to influence transformation software

2007-12-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

I confess. I'm fascinated by SharedBook's cost estimator and preview option for printing my blog. I suppose it's a bit like that "My blog is worth" from Technorati.The trick with SharedBook's Blog2Print is that you have to have a Blogger blog. Simply plug in the URL, select a date-range (or not), choose the order (I always pick oldest to newest), provide a cover image (or not), push the button, and voila!

It occurs to me that for a blog like mine it might be much more useful to be able to select by label than date. For instance, I have many posts which deal with blog transformation. If that is someone's particular interest, why burden them with printing the entire blog? Or if a person is only interested in how other authors have managed to blook anthologies, how about an option to plug in that label and letting them print only those entries?

I wrote to Ann Manby of SharedBook with my suggestion. Here's her response:

"We are looking at different ways to give individuals more control over which posts they want to include in a book. By category is one of the options we're considering.

"Do you think that would be the most helpful, or are there other options that you think we should consider? Please let me know what you think."

Well, Blook Folk, what do you think? Remember that the service comes with a handy-dandy widget to place on your site so that YOUR readers can print and purchase YOUR blog.

Color, Cost and Lulu

2007-12-19T11:08:00.001-08:00

In my post about Hanna Andersson's blook, A Creative Year, I noted that Andersson was a fan of Lulu, which she had used to self-publish her blook. I wanted to take a closer look at that because Andersson's book makes extensive use of color photographs.

The book is 242 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, full-color interior ink, and priced at $44.58. I wasn't the only one who choked on the price for a paperback. I found this at Kelly Kilmer's blog:

"At first I balked about spending $45 for a creativity and then it hit me 'Dummy! This is a self published book. You love Hanna's blog. You need this book.'

In Andersson's FAQ she writes:

"Was it expensive to make?

"To upload a book cover that you’ve designed and the content of a book (a manuscript) costs nothing at lulu.com. To make it available for others to buy costs nothing. I have bought one copy of my own book so far, and I paid just as much as everyone else gets to pay. The price is at lulu for everyone to view and consider! I make about 2 dollars from each book sold I think."

Yours truly is really curious, after all I helped produce Anniemac's garden blook, about what format Andersson chose. We opted for a photo book at Lulu -- no text -- although we could have added captions. If you'd like to see what Andersson's book looks like, Kilmer graciously provided photographs!

One of the commenters asked, "What program did you use for your layout and is that the file that was used to upload the manuscript with?" Andersson replied:

"To answer your question I used Microsoft Word to edit the text that I copied from my blog. The images moved around a lot, but in the end it looks like I want it too. I downloaded a word document from lulu.com where the borders/margins were correct to the book format I wanted and when you upload the document lulu-site converts it to a pdf, but you can also do that before you upload it so really you can use any program (for layout I recommend Quark Express or Illustrator or InDesign if you know them) and send the file as a pdf to lulu. I hope that helps?
"Good luck, can’t wait to read your books everyone!"

Should we understand from that that she used a standard template and that Lulu was smart enough to spot the images and make them color? Has anybody else tried this? Are all interior-color books so expensive? The God Interviews by Natalie d'Arbeloff is 112 pages, 6.14" x 9.21", perfect binding, full-color interior ink, priced at $25.01.

Not Hannah Montana, iHanna from Sweden!

2007-12-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

Are you beginning to feel as if I'm working my way around the world with these blooks? I sure am! I found a mention of Hanna Andersson's blook, A Creative Year: the Diary of Hanna Andersson 2006, at CraftyPod. If you'd like, you can listen to a podcast on how Andersson put her blook together. It runs just a little over 14 minutes. If you haven't got the time, here's some highlights:

While downloading her blog, Andersson was amazed at how much writing she had produced. She had always wanted to try to write a book and having the large raw manuscript amounted to an epiphany. She realized that while other bloggers were getting offers for blooks, nobody was contacting her. She headed off to Lulu, which she says gives an author real power over their own book.

She started off with a document of 400 pages in Microsoft Word. She rewrote, removed links, etc., taking nine months to craft her book, not wanting it to look like a blog on paper, but with real chapters so it would read like a book. The result looks professional, she says, with photographs mingled with text on glossy pages. She was especially keen on the idea of a permanent record. Why a book? So people like her grandmother who have no computer could see what she'd been doing.

Simply reading her blog offline gave Andersson such a different perspective on herself that she encourages other bloggers to read back through what they've written. "I've learned which words I misspell all the time, which subjects I return to so often."

She had kept a diary since she was 12, but the blog interaction, feedback, suggestions -- made her more curious. Archiving is an important way "to remember how much you've done." Her blook allows her to talk with a reader, as in a conversation, asking you to do things, to see possibilities, in a way that online posts cannot.

At Andersson's blog she posted an FAQ about her blook. This topic really grabbed me:

"Can I/anyone make a book?

"I don’t know! It took a lot of time for me, and I’ve done both layout and design before, so it probably depends on how much time you have and how good you want your book to look. To upload a manuscript is not difficult at all and then the rest is easy, so if you want to have a book of your own I think you should go for it!
"I had a good year last year, it was very unlike this one I’m working through right now. I’m glad I picked 2006 to become a book. I had so much then that I’ve now lost and miss greatly. And when life goes on constantly a book can be ended on a nice day where the future is bright. I really like that about a book, that you have the power over what to include and what to exclude, when to start and when to stop. I love books with a good ending so my ending is bright and glorious!"

Remind me to let Andersson know about the Blooker competition!

Is this a blook from the Academy?

2007-12-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in 'Brum is a blook by Kathleen Dixon Donnelly. It's described at Lulu (where she self-published) this way:

"After about 18 months of partial employment in Florida, chronicled in Gypsy Teacher: “Every Wednesday... ?!”, in June of 2004 I was offered a great full-time teaching job…in England. So in the middle of four hurricanes we packed up and moved suitcases, boxes, and eventually cats from coastal Florida to inland Britain. And I wrote about it every Wednesday."

You can read the blog entries at www.gypsyteacher.blogspot.com. In her last post there she wrote:
"I’ve been posting things on H2G2, a Wikipedia-type site started by The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy author Doug Adams that is linked to BBC. Anyone can join and post, but they are running some of my pieces in their monthly newsletter, The Post, as “Explaining the British Isles to Americans.” Some are re-cycled blogs, but some will be new. I’m now linked to a link to BBC! Ever closer to being published."

I've included that for you folks who think that self-publishing dooms you forever to the so-called inferior ranks of the self-published! I also want to mention that Donnelly's blook was entered in the 14th Annual Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Awards. The link there survives as do all the links from blooks that competed for the Blooker Prize. And speaking of the Blooker ... I was surprised that Donnelly had not entered. Then I spotted this on Lulu's site ... it's a comment left by Donnelly:

"what about the 'blooker'?
"by Kathleen Dixon Donnelly on Sunday 06 of May, 2007 [17:04:04 UTC]

I'm seeing all kinds of publicity here in the UK about the upcoming Blooker prize, sponsored by Lulu (isn't this the second year?), but nothing on your site. I subscribe to the newsletter, but don't remember being asked to submit my Lulu books!

Maybe we should suggest that she become a regular reader here at Blooking Central ;-)

Searching for Blooks from the Academy

2007-12-18T07:26:00.000-08:00

If you rattle my cage long enough, all sorts of things will shake out! When I wrote my post on Blooks in Academia, I was reminded that Novelr had a post, "Gosh! A Thesis On Blog Fiction!" The thesis belonged to Betsy Friedrich. You can check out Novelr for her chapter highlights. Friedrich on blook-stuff is here.

That, in turn, reminded me of James Smythe working on his Ph.D. [something to do with online fiction]. Novelr was interviewed by him.

Are there other blooks coming from academia? And yes, if Friedrich and Smythe are posting content -- which will appear in print as part of their thesis and dissertation -- the result will be blooks.

Keep the Door Open

2007-12-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

~~When I had trouble commenting,~~ When I couldn't comment on Robert Gould's blog, I tracked him down through his website and sent him email. The gentleman had added Blooking Central to his Blogroll after all! As Windvein remarked, "It may be just an oversight by the author. I accidentally had my comments restricted to only registered users. I didn't discover it until a kind reader emailed me." His diagnosis was correct. Gould replied:

"Thank you for trying to comment!

Hopefully I've cured the comment problem now. (I unchecked the 'Users must be registered and logged in to comment' box) - could you try that and tell me if it's successful?

Thanks for trying to comment anyway!

As to what I'm trying to do:

I started writing this story about 2 years ago. I was fairly regular in my updates, but for whatever reason it started to slip as my work and family commitments increased (up to the point where I'd not touched it for about 6 months).

And then I'd read on my company's intranet about a novel that had been published that had first started its life as part of a blog - [Wouldn't you love to know which blook that was?] so I thought I'd try that approach. At least then I would be able to gauge my work and see how it was being taken my readers and perhaps take on-board whatever good comments and ideas they'd suggested. (plot developments, storylines, character construction, use of language etc)

No comments yet though :( [And now we all know why! :-) ]

Hopefully, it will start to generate some as people find it.

I also know that my writing is not to 'professional' standards and that it's just a bit of fun for me (I'm a graphic designer and not a writer per se) but if something comes out of it then fine. If not, at least it was a good exercise in writing!"

I wish Gould luck. My own online fiction venture has garnered exactly one comment and I just posted the sixteenth chapter, "He Put the Panties in his Pocket." Is there a trick someone would like to share with Gould and me for attracting readers? After all, we've seen that site statistics and reader comments play a big role in selling a manuscript to a publisher. There's gotta be a way!

Blooks in Academia?

2007-12-18T06:51:00.000-08:00

Hard as it may be to believe, blooks have either arrived or are on their way into the sacrosanct halls of academia. I've picked up hints here and there [Brent Kado's Blues And The Machine: Music, Politics and the Death of Post Modernism, master's thesis], but then I received a definitive email from Razima Shahira. You'll remember that she's the one who graciously provided assistance verifying the last three Malaysian blooks I highlighted. I thanked her for her help and was startled by her reply:

"you're most welcome...
"you didn't have to post my reply on your blog, it's wayyy too flattering. i didn't do much, the info was already thr to begin with. a mention would have been enough...
"i don't have a blog, i just read them...my fav are food blogs on eating spots around kuala lumpur, i try to check em out after reading them.
"bout how i came about ur blog... i'm a publishing student at Universiti Malaya. i'm looking for a subject to do research on, blooks seems intersting... a new medium gaining popularity fast... i typed blook on Google and ur link came out... very intersting, i learned a lot about blooks from ur blog and others and comments... havent decided on a research subject yet, but... will you help answer my Qs if i need help? it'll be soooo helpful...and much appreciated.
"and thnx for answering my Qs, Fall In...yeah, i think dats it...
"i'll be reading more of your blogs after this, i'd love to research on something new, it's relativly new in Malaysia.. looking forward to ur blogs... cheers!
"you can look me up on Friendster if u want, with this add: razima-shahira@lycos.com
or just type Razima Shahira on Yahoo, d frenster link will pop out.
"ooo, my frens call me Ira... short for Shahira.

A publishing student? Who knew that you could study publishing?!! And blooks as a research topic? Guess I arrived just in time to ride the wave!

Copy Editor

2007-12-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

Since a number of blooks are published without benefit of professional editing, I wanted to be sure that you know that there are folk out there ready to help, if you want it. One of them is Deborah Woehr, author of the blook God's Last Twilight. I asked Woehr about her services, especially copyediting.

"Thank you for inquiring about my services. My specialty is copyediting, where I comb through each page to check for typos, awkward sentences and plot inconsistencies. I also check for design errors. Check out my home page, if you'd like to read the testimonials from some of my clients. My rate is $1 per page, up to 320 pages. For each page after that, I charge 50 cents. I also require a 50% retainer before I start the project."

I only had one follow-up for her ... "What's a page?"

"By defining page, I mean full-bodied manuscript pages. It just occurred to me that when I gave you that figure, I wasn't thinking about title pages or section pages. For those, I charge 25 cents each."

If you know of someone [Assuming they have a connection to at least one blook!], I'd like to hear about other "helpers" -- agents, publishers, publicists, cover artists, etc. I'm happy to pass the info on.

Hardback Blogs - Croatia

2007-12-17T11:05:00.001-08:00

I had such good results the last time that I asked for help that I thought I'd try again! In an article at Javno.com, "Hardback Blogs - Through Blogs to Literary Fame" by Lajla Mlinaric, she mentioned three blooks:

"Zrinsko pismo, or Zrinka Pavlic, even won the Kiklop award for her debutant book of the year, 'World and the Practical Woman' that consists of texts published in Cosmopolitan and her Internet diary."
"Igor Kokorus (Lebowski), one of Croatia's most famous bloggers who enjoys cult status among other bloggers, is the author of Men are from Bars, Women are from Markets, hardback entries of his blog, 'Fruits of the Earth.'"
'Buddha in the Supermarket' is a collection of short stories by Dario (Porto) Rukavina who has made many an entry in his blog.

Here's what I'm looking for:

blog addresses that the blooks were based on;
any information about how the blook came into being:
is the blook simply a collection of sequential posts?
is it arranged topically?
was it self-published or was there an agent/publisher involved?
what does the author have to say about the adventure?

That's the mission, Blook Folk. Now, go and ferret with aplomb!

Online Conundrum

2007-12-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

I don't understand. Lots of things. But I especially don't understand things like this: "Comments and constructive criticism are especially welcomed as I continue to write" when comments are closed!

Robert Gould, "A Change in Weather," is posting an online fairy tale. But that's where I found the comments welcome, comments closed scenario. What's up with that?

Q & A with Eric Anthony Galvez

2007-12-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

When Galvez, author of Reversal: When A Therapist Becomes A Patient, wrote to me asking if I would add his blook to my list, I wrote back with lots of questions. I've posted his initial response, but had even more questions! Here's the outcome:

Blooking Central: I'd like you to explain a few expressions and terms that you used, like "Multiple perspectives". How was that accomplished if the text for print was your blog?

Galvez: I asked people closest to me to write essays about their experience having someone close to them undergo serious medical issues. Included are the perspectives of my family, friends, and therapits/ former co-workers/ friends

Blooking Central: What does "real time format" mean in terms of print?

Galvez: "Real time format" refers to the blog/journal entries of my portion of the blook.

Blooking Central: Book soundtrack -- explain why there is a soundtrack -- what's the point? Should readers download this to listen to while reading your blook? If your blog is still available, can I read and listen at the same time? Who created it? Where can I find it? [I should mention that this is not the first soundtrack for a blook that I've encountered]

Galvez: The book soundtrack is a collection of chapter/essay titles used in the blook. Most of chapter/and essay titles are titles of popular songs. The collection of songs is available as an iMix on iTunes. The book soundtrack does not need to be played while reading the book although the songs do elicit emotions associated with each chapter/essay.

Blooking Central: How big a role does ethnicity play in the book?

Galvez: The conflict of being a 1st generation Filipino American vs my Filipino parents contributes a large portion to my conflict of being an independent young adult vs tradtional overprotective by-the book immigrant parents. They wanted me take things slow, while I wanted to push the limits. I'm not sure this is ethnicity specific, but I have no other point of reference.

Blooking Central: Tell me about your selection of iUniverse.

Galvez: I choose iUniverse because of their print on demand format. I thought it would be easier to distribute the book that way.

Blooking Central: Lastly, you still haven't told me how you actually got the text into the book.

Galvez: The book is divided into 4 sections: My Story (my blog), Perspectives (essay contributions), Random Things, and the Appendix. The book was not formally edited so it is still "rough around the edges". I will be shopping the manuscript to a larger publisher. I submited the manuscript to iUniverse in word format. I didn't purchase copy editing. In a few weeks they sent me link to a PDF proof of the book. I filled out a form to edit the proof. After I subbmitted the proof edits a few weeks later the book was ready!

Here is a preview of the book from iUniverse.

***

I appreciate Galvez's willingness to share with us! Were you impressed with the phrase "real-time format" to describe a blog in print? I was. I'm still not sure about this soundtrack thingy, but it is a clever ploy to distinguish your blook. Wonder if that will make a difference when Galvez submits his blook to the upcoming Blooker competition?

Reversal: Therapist Becomes A Patient

2007-12-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

The following is a letter which I received from Eric Anthony Galvez, author of Reversal: When A Therapist Becomes A Patient.

***

I spent my entire adult life preparing for a career to help others rehabilitate from catastrophic diagnoses. After almost 2 years working as a physical therapist, I received shocking news that I was the recipient of a catastrophic diagnosis. In September 2005, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I became someone I've spent years preparing to help. Reversal: When A Therapist Becomes A Patient is about my experiences as a young rehab patient and healthcare professional. It is unique because it contains:

The humorous perspective of a young active male brain tumor patient that many people can relate
The logical perspective of a patient with a medical background when faced with difficult medical dilemmas
Multiple perspectives from the loved ones closest to a patient
A real time format that is easy to read and validates the authenticity of the situation
A book soundtrack available exclusively on iTunes
The perspective of a 1st Generation Filipino American patient vs. the views of his overprotective traditional Filipino parents

The manuscript was originally intended for the physical therapy, cancer survivor, and healthcare student demographics. I just recently became aware of your blog. I self published through iUniverse, so the book is very raw. Much of the content is straight from my old blog which I entered on the spot with minimal editing.

During my recovery: I led a team that raised over $11,000 for the National Brain Tumor Foundation ; created a support network for young survivors named TUMORS SUCK!; led the development of a unique website called "mAss Kickers" designed to empower cancer/brain tumor patients; organized a national book tour with stops in Evanston IL, Flint MI, Oakland CA, and New York NY; became active in "I'm Too Young For This," a young survivor network with strong ties to the Lance Armstrong Foundation; and have initiated a few more projects yet to be revealed.

This is the latest review of the book in Advance Magazine, a national physical therapy publication with a circulation of 75,000 and an online circulation of 85,000.

***

Several things struck me as I read the letter:

another soundtrack for a blook? [Is this a trend?]
he capitalizes on his ethnicity [this is not a bad thing, only useful]
how are "multiple perspectives" portrayed in a book based on a blog?

In my next post I'll have a Q & A with Galvez that deals with these and other issues.

Attention, Blook Authors!

2007-12-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

I recently received a comment from a gentleman who has published a blook, asking me if I would add it to my list. Of course! However, "advertising" doesn't come for free ... I'm inquisitive ... I like to follow up requests like this:-) Here's the sort of disconnected email that I send -- if you would like me to take a look at your blook -- expect to see something similar.

***

I'd be happy to add your blook to my list. Will you tell me about your blog, where the idea for a book came from, and what it took to turn the blog into a blook? What influenced your decision to self-publish? How did you attract readers to your blog? How are you marketing the blook?

I rarely look at content since I don't do book reviews. However, I'm very interested in process. I hope to demonstrate to my readers how they can blook!

Anything you would like to share would be welcome. For instance, did you write your posts offline (spellchecking, etc.) before posting? Or did you save editing for later? Did you dump the blog and work offline to create a manuscript or did you cut-and-paste from the web? Did you include all the posts from a specific time period or did you select certain ones? If you selected, what criteria did you use?

Obviously, these questions are not in any particular order. But if you send me the answers, I will re-order them and probably have follow-up questions.

***

There you have it -- that's what Blooking Central is about -- that's what I hope you'll find within these posts.

"Build Your Own PC"

2007-12-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

By JingleBerry, I'm getting good at this ferreting-for-blooks business!

Okay, so I made a tiny mistake. Morris Rosenthal sent this correction:
"The first book I sold to McGraw-Hill was The Hand-Me-Down PC, which is long since out of print. Taught me quite a bit about titling. I insisted on "Hand-Me-Down" but it turned out to be unattractive to bookstore browsers vs specific competing titles like "Repairing Your PC", "Upgrading Your PC", etc.. The title "Build Your Own PC" was the second book I sold them, sold over 100,000 copies so far, translated to a half dozen languages, and also started with a draft published online.

3 More Blooks from Malaysia

2007-12-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

I waiting to hear back from Razima Shahira, the reader who volunteered to do some research for me. She was quick with the info on the blooks but I want to give credit where credit is due -- I asked her to tell us a little bit about herself and if she has URLs I want to link to her.

Here's the comment that started the quest: "Saya nak promote blook saya "bukan dugong biasa". I followed it and found myself faced with a language that looked like Malay but I wasn't sure. I went from there to two more blogs! So while we're waiting... here's what Shahira had to say regarding the comment left on my blog. My comments are in square brackets.

****

okay, they're in Malay language, malaysian is our nationality.
It's Malaysian Malay, which is diff from Indonesian Malay... i'm kinda suprised u recognised the difference... cheers for you! [ed., It was dumb luck]

next, there are 3 books. Yes, all of them are real blooks, blogs published into books.

d first add, http://www.dugongsenyum.blogspot.com/ :

Book title: Bukan Dugong Biasa (Not Your Average Dugong) [ed., what's a Dugong?]
Writer: DugongSenyum (SmilingDugong)
ISBN: 978-983-42734-5-3
Mediator: Rudy Bluehikari
Published early this month.

It's his only blook on his blogs. Q, why do you need a mediator for a blook? [ed., Beats me! Good question]

anyways, next add, http://tanahseberang.blogspot.com/ :

Book title: Tanah Seberang (literally means the other part of the world).
Writer/Project Coordinator: DugongSenyum

still in the making, compilation of blogs of other bloggers about their experience overseas. be it studying, working, travelling, etc... motivational stuff.
Entries shuld b emailed to: basri.normohdPADAM@gmail.com

Right now he's posting artwork proposals for the cover.

And the last add, http://masukbarisan.blogspot.com/ :

Title: Masuk Barisan (Military call when u want them to get in line, how does it go? can't remember... sorry) that's why the cover has a pic of men in slacks lining up. [ed., Fall in?]

Editors: Jigo, Attokz dan Basri ( i reckon Basri is DugongSenyum himself) [ed., Why?]
Publisher : Mak Itam Network Enterprise
ISBN : 9834273436
First print: 2006
The book's project blog: http://jiwakacau.blogdrive.com

its a collection of short stories frm d internet, here's the list of contributrs:

Amanitium http://amanitium.blogspot.com
Aqil http://aqildotcom.blogspot.com
Attokz
Azhan http://azhan.blogspot.com
Bluehikari
Book http://bukhariramli.blogspot.com [ed., What does "book" mean?]
El-Maaniq http://delimasakti.blogspot.com
Esis http://sukaatiaku.blogspot.com
Kelambu http://kelambu.blogspot.com
Kemat http://liepan.blogspot.com
Kingbinjai http://kingbinjai.blogdrive.com
Mat Jan http://www.kroni.biz/jj
Ms D' http://gurisanintaglio.blogspot.com
Naimisa Yusof http://naimisa.blogspot.com
Op & Mulan http://fikirandalamkembara.blogdrive.com
Puteri Elaira Eliza http://www.elaira.net
Rima Nilzah http://rimanilzah.cjb.net
Rulan Awan http://awanputih.blogspot.com
Sam Ahmad http://zulfikarsamsuri.blogspot.com
Si Dugong http://dugongsenyum.blogdrive.com
Sinaganaga http://sinaganaga.blogspot.com
Superdiman http://oksigen.blogdrive.com
Tok Rimau
Tuan Tanah http://tanahpusaka.blogspot.com

so, hope that's sufficient info. Mail me if there's anything else : )

Razima

****

The lady is nothing if not thorough! The kindness is much appreciated.

Query Letter for Selling Your Blog

2007-12-14T08:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think this whole blog about blooks depends on flukes. Case in point - yesterday I began a correspondence with a gentleman about doing a guest post. There was some confusion over what made for a blook. He wrote:

"Took me a minute to figure out what a blook was. I almost published a hundred posts as a book from my blog a year or so ago, got as far as having the proofs in my hand and sending copies to the LOC for copyright, but decided against it at the last moment. I didn't like the lack of focus. Two hundred posts later, I gave it to my editor to see if she could find a book in there :-)"

I told him that I used the Blooker Prize competition definition:

"A blook is a book with content that was developed in a significant way from material originally presented on a blog, webcomic or other website."

Imagine my surprise when he wrote back: "In that case I'm a pioneer:-) I published my first website to be a book in 1995, used the website traffic to sell it to McGraw-Hill."

Wow! The blook is called Build Your Own PC -- now in its 4th Edition The Hand-Me-Down PC -- and was written by Morris Rosenthal. I did a little more research and found a post from July 18, 2005:

Sample Query Letter Example for Selling Out

"I searched through my old documents and found the original query letter I used to sell out. The actual chain of events was that I sent out eight copies of this query letter, got four responses within a week saying, "send us what you have," and spent the next month finishing the book. I also sent out more copies of the sample query letter below (to the very top publishers this time), and got more interest, but at the end of the day, decided to self publish. About a week after I started selling the book on my website without any way to process credit cards, I gave up and put the whole book online. The traffic kept growing and the next year I sold out to McGraw-Hill."

Yes, you can go to the site and see the actual letter along with Rosenthal's critique:-)

"Print is Dead"

2007-12-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

I picked up the nod on Jeff Gomez's blook, Print is Dead, from Joe Wikert. I headed over to Gomez's blog and learned this:
"Gomez is the author of four novels, including the cult favorite Our Noise, which was published by Scribner Paperback fiction in America and Penguin in the UK. He is currently the Senior Director of Online Consumer Sales and Marketing for Penguin Group USA. Jeff has been involved in electronic books and the world of digital reading since the industry’s beginning in 1999, and he has also been a featured speaker and panelist at publishing industry events throughout America."

His post announcing the publication of Print is Dead was a bit ambiguous as to its blookhood:

"I’m happy to say that Print is Dead is now available for purchase in both print and electronic formats. I would say that it’s been a long road to get to this day, but it really hasn’t been; I wrote the book in a couple of fevered months late last year and early this year (as well as another bout of composition in May and June). ... Of course, just because it went by so fast doesn’t mean that it was easy; it’s been a long year of writing and researching, in addition to working my regular job, moving, teaching a class, and trying do a few other creative things to retain my sanity."

Not wanting to mislead you, dear Blook Folk, I wrote to the author to get a definitive declaration. Gomez replied:

"Yes, to some degree Print is Dead is a blook since, after the first draft, I went and adapted some blog postings I had written into material that later made its way into the final edit of the book. The original point of the blog was to comment and monitor on the day-to-day events that occur in the general 'future of the book' discussion, but I've found that --- over time --- some of the things I would write about, or comment on, had a real worth in terms of the overall point of the book I was writing, and so that material would get included. At the time I was writing, I wouldn't get too many comments on the blog, so that didn't shape the writing very much, but I could really see how getting feedback from a blog would have a really great effect on the final product."

Oh, and in case you're like his friends and relatives who "hope [his] predictions for the demise of books doesn’t come true," Gomez has this to say: "I guess they think I’m predicting that print’s going to die, but what I’m really saying is that print’s already dead."

2nd Sulekha & Penguin Blook

2007-12-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

Information on the second blook from Sulekha and Penguin was a bit scarce. However, there was this paragraph and a list of winners:

"The India Smiles Contest saw some very stiff competition. More than a thousand entries were received, much more than we planned or were prepared for. The final selection of winners was based on a combination of the following: reviews of the eminent panel of judges, reviews by Penguin and Sulekha Editors and user response and comments on Sulekha."

And the Winners are...	Prizes	Prize Winning Entry
Manjul Bajaj	1st Prize $2000	Ruminations of the Teenager Formerly Known as Achint
S Narayan	1st Runner-up $200	All In The Genes
Madhulika Liddle	2nd Runner-up $100	A Suitor For Saraswati
Deepanjali Pandey	2nd Runner-up $100	Memories, Mammaries & Monita Rajpal

1st Blook from Sulekha & Penguin

2007-12-13T09:54:00.001-08:00

The first blook from Sulekha and Penguin, Sulekha Select, is a collection of 42 pieces (256 pages!). This is how Sulekha says the blook came to be:

"Sulekha Select was born of the long-standing demand of its loyal (and sometimes vociferous) readers for a print compilation of the most popular articles. True to the spirit of the Sulekha site itself, the 42 articles in the book were chosen from a pool of over 200 nominated articles, which readers selected from the over 1200 articles and columns published on Sulekha since 1998."

There's a full page of reviews that I'd recommend reading if you want to discover the pros and cons of anthologies. Here's just a few:

PRO
What emerges in all these writings is that elusive but all pervading
character of 'Indian-ness' which goes beyond ethnicity, religion, language,
behavior, lifestyle ... .
There are heartfelt musings, embarrassing confessions, hilarious escapades,
painful autobiographies and plenty of parodies of that condition peculiar to the
global Indian community known as desiness.
CON
"The literary quality of these pieces is doubtless uneven."
"In fact, with authors from all walks of life hailing from different corners
of the globe, the book is an interesting study of various styles and
spellings."
"True to what the editors have informed us (or warn), the collection of
pieces is extremely varied. The sophistication of the submissions chosen range
from the angst-ridden pieces that might be found in a high school literary
journal to some rather well-crafted compositions ... ."

Sulekha Announces Competition

2007-12-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm a little late with this (it started in August!) but it's not over yet. The six-month long competition sponsored by Sulekha and Penguin ends January 31st. And for those of you wondering why I'm passing the info on, the end result of the contest will be a blook :-)

Here's the announcement:

"Sulekha.com takes great pride in announcing "BLOGPRINT" in association with Penguin Books. Over the next 6 months, 25 selected posts from our bloggers will be published in a Penguin book! You have the opportunity to go down in history as one of the best bloggers on Sulekha.com. This comes on the back of our two previous successful publications in 'India Smiles' and 'Sulekha Select'.
"The contest runs from the 1st of August, 2007 to the 31st of January, 2008. Two posts will be selected every week for the contest by the Team Sulekha.com. Of the 52 posts selected (2 posts per week for 26 weeks), a panel of eminent judges from the literary field will shortlist 25 select pieces of writing which will appear in the book."

What sort of posts are they looking for?

"The parameters which will be used to select a post and shortlist it to 52 will be on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative measures. Quantitative will include parameters such as the number of page views, comments and recommendations your blog post gets while qualitative will be on various factors including grammatical correctness, style of writing and flourish."

These are really the same sorts of things that publishers are looking at when they go searching for blookable blogs! Not that I haven't mentioned that many times before :-)

When All Else Fails

2007-12-12T10:59:00.001-08:00

So the other day this fella left a comment on my blog in a foreign language. The only word I recognized was blook, big surprise. I followed the link to his blog where, sure enough, I saw a picture of a book cover. I would be more than happy to post about it -- and the two others that it apppears he has written -- if only I could decipher what his blog had to say.

I tried posting at blogs where the folks are bilingual. I even tried emailing two people in search of someone who could at the very least tell me if the language is Malaysian [it looks like that's what it is, but really, I haven't a clue]. So far no response.

Here's your chance to help me and I hope you're not offended that you're my last resort. If you or someone you know speaks Malay, would you leave a comment so I can contact you? I'm also open to suggestions on how to find someone.

I found this handy-dandy Malay to English dictionary so I can go word-by-word (a lot like Babelfish, see GoingLikeSixty's post) if I could just be sure the darn blog was in Malay. Thanks.

Zero to Superhero

2007-12-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Zero to Superhero - Get Stronger, Faster, Leaner, Smarter by Jason S. Comely began as an experiment, not a book draft! According to a book review at "That's News":

"Divorced, injured, bankrupt and overweight in the cold months of 2001, Jason Comely was tired of being a loser. He set out on a fact-finding mission to improve his health and his life, and eventually shed 80 lbs of body fat.
"Meanwhile, Jason documented his findings and successes on-line. Soon others began losing weight with his diet strategies. Zero to Superhero is the end results of the author’s formal studies, exhaustive research, and self-experimentation.
"Originally, Jason's experiments in self enhancement weren't meant to be a book."

Prompted by readers of his blog, he began writing:

The book’s concept expanded in breadth and depth when Jason went to college for an education in personal training and fitness theory. That foundation of knowledge, coupled with anecdotal records from his own intense weight training and insatiable appetite for the inside angle, ultimately defined what is now a successful selling e-book cum paperback release.

You can do that, not the weight loss thingy, okay, maybe you can, after all that's the premise of the blook. What I meant was that you can release an "e-book cum paperback" using Lulu, which is what Comely did. You can also, if you're technically adept, or maybe you don't have to be, enhance your paperback with a video on YouTube. That's what the hype at Comely's website says, that the book is enhanced. But darned if I can find a link to YouTube! [Lest you think that I'm a total Luddite, I did cobble together a trailer for my novel, PARK RIDGE.]

Can I Sit with You?

2007-12-11T08:12:00.001-08:00

The description of the blook at Lulu calls Can I Sit with You an "on-going book and blog project." It comes from Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jennifer Byde Myers at the blog of the same name.

On September 24, 2007, the authors wrote:

"[W]e are asking you to send us your most memorable stories about surviving, succeeding, or sucking it up while dealing with the other kids at school. We're going to post one of your stories on this blog every week day, starting October 1st. We'll keep posting as long as the stories keep coming.
Once we've got at least twenty good stories, we'll compile them into a book, which will be called (duh) "Can I Sit With You?" You'll be able to buy the book via Lulu.com in mid-November, at which point you can crow to your friends and relatives about your success as a published writer. (And convince everyone you've ever known to buy one as a holiday gift.)"

I don't know how many stories they eventually included but the blook is 150 pages! No doubt sequels are planned. As with many - really! - blooks the proceeds are being donated: "the books' proceeds will directly benefit our local, income-challenged special needs PTA, SEPTAR. (Here's where we mention that we're both parents of special needs as well as typical kids, and on the board of said PTA.)"

Blog Novels

2007-12-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

A while back I enjoyed a post by Julia Glassman, Girl Detective, in response to J.M. Tyree's article "Here's To the Death of the "Death of" Article: The future of the short story in a digital age."

Here's a taste of Tyree on the blog novel:

"The great American blog novel — yet to be written as far as I know — will not be a novel written on a blog but instead be the blog of a compelling fictional character, or a community of interacting invented literary personas, the online equivalent of the Portuguese Fernando Pessoa, who invented poets from various schools with clashing manifestoes. This approach would take fiction back to one its sources in the 17th century, the “jest biography,” such as The Life of Long Meg of Westminster. Somebody wonderful has already done this in comic form with the “blog” of the Incredible Hulk." [ed., site is still available but not being updated]

Here's Girl Detective's comment:

"As we’ve seen with Lonely Girl 16, an online journal can be a fascinating way to blend reality and fiction through serialized narrative. And what better forum than the Internet, with its enabling of cyborg personalities and anonymous roleplay, to explore the potential of narrative that blurs the line between real and imaginary?"

Both posts are must reads for folks working with fiction on the net.

Blook has been around a while, folks!

2007-12-11T07:36:00.000-08:00

Humpf! Go figure how it is that in the last two days I've stumbled across two folks who think that they've invented the word blook. Yesterday it was Mr. Josefowicz who has since posted that a Google search for blook netted 246,000 hits! He's decided to go with bluuk instead.

Today a person who calls himself pok at "sculpture lecturer's blog" writes:

"Today I have strengthened my resolve, not only to edit the entire Blog, but also to REVERSE its chronolgy so that the reader can see its narrative unfolding like a novel.
"I will call it the world's first 'BLOOK', being a Book made of a Blog."

For a word that made the top of ten of most hated words related to the internet (see The Guardian's post), it just can't be all that offensive if people are still trying to claim its origin! And just to be sure we keep our stories straight, it was Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine that coined the word ... in 2002.

"Blooks are Bullshit"

2007-12-10T12:10:00.000-08:00

Michael Josefowicz at "Communication Ecology" posted an unusual definition of blook, one I had never seen before. According to him:

"A blook is meant to describe a codex format that is filled with content that started it's life on a blog. But the issue is specificially not the technology used, nor the number of copies produced, nor the details of the particular codex form that was chosen.
"The distinguishing characteristic is that the content contained in a blook is the product of a relatively small amount of reflection and a mechanical detailing of the form."

I'm not all that comfortable with that word codex ["A manuscript volume, especially of a classic work or of the Scriptures"] because I can't find a definition that fits how I think of a blog. I, for sure, have no idea what a codex-format is. [Are you surprised at my ignorance?]

Josefowicz maintains that a book is similar to a blook but differing in the amount of reflection that went into producing the content. Can that be right? Did he really write that?

He also says: "To be clear, either form can still be worthless to any particular reader. But a blook is much more likely to be bullshit. Note that bullshit is taken in this context in the philosophical sense of content that should not be evaluated by whether or not it corresponds to the real world."

Needless to say I strongly disagree with this cavalier attitude toward blog content and blooks. Ironically, Mr. Josefowicz lays claim to a blook! [Maybe it's not ironic at all.] Luckily for me Google cached a page from the Language of Communication Ecology wiki and I can pass on to you what Josefowicz posted there:

"What you are holding in your hand is information delivered through the form of a book. The information presented here is not a "book" in the sense of being the product of disciplined considered thought. It's somewhere between a blog and a series of published columns. The words strung together here started their life as the result of many conversations. They then migrated to a series of columns ... . In their present incarnation, they appear in a book form produced for the PIA/GATF, Variable Data and Personalization Conference held Nov 3-6, 2007 in Phoenix, AZ. The present digital home of these words are on my wiki [Private]. Given how often I tinker with them, they are truly variable data."

"Today, the effort and cost of production was acceptable. It took about 40 people hours to transform the words - in the form of data stored at OnDemandJournal.com and other ideas still in my head, and transform them into this physical codex form. The 40 people hours were spent over a two week period, in the midst of real life - between day jobs and being with family. I am lucky enough to have access to a skilled graphic designer who agreed to put the words into an appropriate form as a favor. The out of pocket dollar cost was negligible. The investment in time was acceptable. The only hardware/software required was a computer with web access and a document creation program, in this case Quark, to create the document. No other purchased software."

While I grant you that it's entirely possible to dump a blog into print via Blurb or SharedBook to create a blook, the vast majority of blooks that I've looked at here have always been something more. Just this week we saw how much work Ryan Zeinart put into his blook, 65 Poor Life Decisions! Or what about something like Blogs From The Liberal Standpoint: 2004-2005 by Lawrence R. Velvel? I think Mr. Josefowicz has made a distinction which doesn't bear scrutiny.

The Book of the Enemy

2007-12-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

Catch my column at Future Perfect Publishing about The Book of the Enemy, a multi-media book, that might someday hit print and be a blook!

Blook: Bridge between Blogger and Author

2007-12-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

I love the quote that forms the title of this post! It comes from an interview at Spork Nation with Ryan Zeinert, author of 65 Poor Life Decisions. The blook is a collection of essays from Zeinert's blog "The Communist Dance Party."

thecdp: Well, I started the blog because I wanted to write books some day.... I consider this book the bridge between blogger and author, and I want to move further over to the 'author' side of the equation. Keep the blog, but separate the two just a little bit more. My next book will be 100% new, non-blog material. Which should be a lot more appealing to...well, everyone.
JT: Got it. Oddly enough, I started Spork Nation because I was trying to write a book, and felt it was too disjointed, so it became a blog.
thecdp: Blogs are a good way to get your head on straight. Write about the little things, notice the big things and expand on them thusly. It's also a good way to see what's working and what isn't. Instant feedback.

Zeinert was also asked "How hard was it, going back over old essays, and picking what to keep, what to cut, and what to rewrite?" I was surprised and not surprised at his response:

"It was mixed. I had over 650 essays and 1800 pages to sift through, and I ended up with 65 essays on 298 pages. So yeah, it was a huge undertaking. There were essays that got cut just seconds before I sent the book to print. At the last second, I got a bad feeling about them, so we had to update the cover, title, PDF, everything. Just the sifting and cutting took a couple of months. The editing took almost less time."

That's the condensed version of what he went through! For a really thorough look at what he did, see his post "3 Days Until Doomsday." Here are some of the highlights:

He shut down the blog for one month
cutting and pasting was "like having to watch home movies of yourself at your most awkward and annoying"
"The goal was to take the best of the CDP and make it better; polish everything up, re-write passages and perfect each essay to resemble exactly what I was trying to convey"
drafts of 75 essays (350 pages) were sent out for review by friends and family
"New introductions were written for every essay, all-new forewords and afterwords were added"

Then Zeinert wrote something that I don't understand, but then I didn't self-publish using Lulu as he did. I'm guessing that Deborah Woehr or another of my readers might be able to shed some light on this.

"For the first time in this journey, the publishing process was officially out of my hands. I had done everything I could do with it on my own; I designed the cover, threw a ton of money into self-publishing fees and sent it off to the printing press. For the next few weeks, I had to wait for the US Government and the fine folks at Lulu.com to make sure that everything met the criteria for self-publishing rights and distribution. I guess they don't want something available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble that's terrible, but if you've been to either retailer lately, they clearly haven't been doing a very good job of keeping the turds out."

As for site statistics of the blog, which we've looked at before as a predictor of blookability, Zeinert said in an interview at Dane101.com: "The first month, we got 50 total hits. Last month, we received 13,000."

I hope he remembers to enter the Blooker competition when it's finally announced.

Best Practices for Blooks

2007-12-05T11:45:00.001-08:00

I'm pleased as can be to have heard from Tony Pearson, author of Inside System Storage - Volume I. Among his many comments was this: "I would love to see a "Best Practices" for writing blooks." Me, too. I think this is a super idea. Would you like to help?

I've looked at lots of non-fiction blooks at Blooking Central. A few that come to mind are some I mentioned in my last column at Future Perfect Publishing, "Business Blooks - Beta Publishing," such as Avinash Kaushik's Web Analytics: An Hour a Day and Michael Lopp's Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering. And let's not forget Gina Trapani's LifeHacker.

Non-fiction books (to my mind at least) are generally presented in topical fashion. If you're producing your book from your blog [making it a blook ;-) that makes it pretty tough unless you're an incredibly organized person and doped the whole thing out ahead of time. Most of us post as subjects or topics present themselves. For instance, I posted about Amazon's new e-book reader shortly after it was released. The timing made sense, but if I was going to simply dump my blog into print, the post would be sandwiched between "Can We Trust the Gospels?" and "Inside System Storage"! I'd much rather that it appeared in a section or chapter about Presentation of Your Blog or some such, similar to what Novelr's Design: Improving Readability Without Lifting A Pencil.

In order to arrange blog material in cohesive chapters we'll have to rearrange the posts. Of course, if you wrote your posts BEFORE you blogged them -- spelling and grammar checking, polishing -- then saved them as files, you probably named them something useful, maybe even tucked them into separate folders! Yes, people really do this :-)

Sorting after the fact can still be done. How you choose to do it sort of depends on how much material you've got. Methods reported by blookers via comments or email here at Blooking Central range from using Blogger's labels or WordPress's categories to searching your blog for keywords. Those more savvy technically speaking like Trapani used software like DEVONThink Pro.

There are some of us too old-fashioned for that. We just read the posts one at a time and cut and paste them into chapter files. Yes, I am a dinosaur and I know that my days are numbered. But in a way this approach makes its own kind of sense. I file my posts under rather casual labels when I remember to label them at all. And just because a blook is labelled "fiction" doesn't indicate the focus of the post at all. Maybe I was looking at how a particular author marketed his blook or what the navigation of the site was like.

I'll be thinking more about Best Practices in upcoming posts, but then I'd like to think that that's sort of what I've been doing all along with this blog.

Dealing with Pesky Links in Blooks

2007-12-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

Tony Pearson, author of Inside System Storage - Volume I, has a recent post, "Ins and Outs of Blooking," which is an incredibly detailed account of how he managed to transform his blog into a print volume (blook). Here's a list of the major decisions that Tony covers. There's absolutely nothing from stopping you from using this as a checklist when you make your own blook!

Decision 1: Defining the Container
Decision 2: Chapter Configuration
Decision 3: Cut-and-Paste
Decision 4: Numbering the Posts
Decision 5: Adding behind-the-scenes commentary
Decision 6: Adding a Glossary
Decision 7: Designing the Covers
Decision 8: Finding someone to write the Foreword
Decision 9: Printing Early Drafts

Links

Several references to links caught my eye as I flicked through the post such as: "Microsoft Word indicates all hyperlinks as bright blue underlined text which I didn't like, so I removed all hyperlinks, to avoid having to pay extra for 'colored pages'." Pearson's solution:

"To indicate where the hyperlinks would have been, I wrapped all the linked text
in [square brackets]. I have now gotten in the habit of doing this for future
blog posts, so if I ever make another book, it will cut down the work and effort
on the cut-and-paste."

Beyond the color or no color issue, most blookers face the question of what to do with links. The Language Log folks, who blooked Far from the Madding Gerund, "floated the references next to the text (sidebar) and lightened the text phrase that was highlighted in the original blog post." The response to their decision has been mixed.

Elayne Zalis (VirtualDayz) put her links into true footnotes. Actually, since she used Blurb, which automatically converts URLs into notes, she didn't have much choice :-) I didn't, still don't, like the fact that Blurb also took the Technorati tags and made them into notes. But speaking of Technorati tags, Pearson says:

"I decided to also cut-and-paste my technorati tags and comments. For comments I made myself, I labeled them 'Addition' or 'Response'. A few people did not realize that I was 'az990tony' making the comments as the blog author, so I changed all to say 'az990tony (Tony Pearson)' to make this more clear, and now do this on all future blog posts to minimize the work for my next book."

Adding the comments if they contribute to the discussion makes sense [did we remember to ask permission of the posters?] but I fail to understand why anyone would want the Technorati tags in a print volume -- they are so eminently "web."

But back to links and notes and such. Pearson constructed a Blogroll as part of the end matter for his blook. Is it truly a reproduction of his blogroll? What is the Reference Table? In plainer language, are the URLs behind the links that were deemed important enough to indicate with square brackets ever captured?

Links to images and videos brought their own set of problems.

"Some of the items I linked to posed a problem. I had to convert YouTube videos to flat images of the first frame to include them into the book. Older links were broken, and I had to find the original graphics. I also sent a note to Scott Adams related about the use of one of his Dilbert cartoons.

In a future post I'll be looking at some other issues Pearson raised. If you want to anticipate me :-), read his full post now.

A Web Comic Goes Blook - Part 5

2007-12-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

Author Ray Friesen (YARG!) has been sharing with us about getting his web comics into print (blooking). In one of his many emails [Thanks again, Ray!] he mentioned the importance of having a booth at big book and comic shows. I'd already run into the concept when I was looking at the Dada Detective. Victor posted this about attendance at the MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) Festival:

"Sunday things heated up. Not only were things considerably more crowded in the building, but people were buying things. Our things. We sold out of Dada Detective books-- both full-size and preview size-- and were dangerously low on copies of the Dada Alphabet by shows end. The message? Bring more books! Still, it was kind of a thrill to exceed our expectations. We'll definitely be making a return trip to MoCCA next year. In fact, we already reserved our table."

I wrote to Friesen and asked him about he handles ordering, etc. [You'll see from his response how unclear I can be about what I'm after at times! Of course, I didn't have the URL handy, nor did I have in hand the direct quote that I found in time for this post.]

Blooking Central: The Dada Alphabet folks mentioned that it's really difficult to order for shows. Could you share how you've handled that in the past and how you do it now? While you're at it, could you tell me a bit about how important shows are to your marketing strategy?"

Friesen: I don't know what the Dada Alphabet people mean, it's fairly easy to obtain a booth at a show. Usually you just find the show's website, and they'll be a space reservation form. Shows cost of course, so you have to be able to afford it. I think shows a great way to get your name out there, I like talking to fans personally, and winning over new ones. This next year I'll be at the LA times Festival of Books at UCLA, Comic Con, the American Library Associations show, Book Expo America, Kirkus's New York Show, and whatever else I find between now and then. I also try and set up signings at stores. My local Barnes & Noble always has a book release party with me.

Do they mean getting books in time for a show? It really does help to get the books and whatever made well in advance.

Blooking Central: Sorry for the confusion. I meant ordering for shows. The Dada folks ran out of books at least once and were anxious about how many to order for the next several shows. I would think that shipping books to cons, etc. would be a big deal (especially if you have to pay to ship them home again.)

Really impressive list of places that you'll be!

Friesen: Ah, yes. It's always better to have too many books than not enough. So they order books as they need them for shows? I got boxes full in the garage -- never run out. Shipping books home is never fun, a lot of the shows I do are within driving distance, and the ones I do fly to, I smuggle as much as I can in my luggage (they'll usually let you take a suitcase and 2 carry-ons -- if you economize on clothes you don't have to spend much on postage).

***

My thanks to Ray Friesen for providing this behind the scenes look at blooking a web comic!

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A Web Comic Goes Blook

Part 1 **** Part 2 **** Part 3 **** Part 4

A Web Comic Goes Blook - Part 4

2007-12-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

I was intrigued by what Ray Friesen, author of the blook YARG!, had to say about the actual printing of his comics:

"One of the most daunting things about getting a book into print is just affording it. You need to do a high quantity in order to get any sort of good resale price. The best way to get a comic into print is to start small, but think big."

I was a bit thrown by his comment since I had used print-on-demand for my novel, PARK RIDGE (from BookLocker.com). I had no big monetary investment in a "high quantity to get a lower resale price." I asked him about it:

"Should I understand that to mean that you did not use some form of print on demand? See my Q & A with Kevin Cornell (Mojo the Sock Monkey). Ryan North (The Best of Dinosaur Comics: 2003-2005 AD) had some things to say about the use of color and comics."

"I don't use print on demand, frankly because by the time I heard it existed, I was already doing something else. I have my collections printed by Lebonfon, a big printer in Canada that does most of all the comics and graphic novels you can find."

I'm going to interject here that it seems only reasonable to check other blooks and books to see who's printing what.

"Color is really only effective if you're doing a really high quantity (even color copies at a Kinko's-type place cost, what, 60 cents each? double sided, 24 page comic means $14 dollars a comic? So you really have to be printing thousands of them before the price comes down to something reasonable.
"And for me, having a distributor that sells them to book stores means I don't get the full retail price. Barnes & Noble wants to buy the books for half price, and the distributor wants to make money too.
"I didn't know Ryan North had any color books out. I have his black and white collection out from Quack.

Let me say this about color -- Natalie D'Arbeloff self-published Interviews with God through Lulu. It's 112 pages with full-color interior ink and priced at $25.

I was fascinated by Friesen's mention of doing shows. I'd run into the idea when I was researching the Dada Alphabet blooks. Someone had posted that they had run out of books and in my next post I talk with Friesen about scheduling and ordering.

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A Web Comic Goes Blook

Part 1 **** Part 2 **** Part 3 **** Part 5

A Web Comic Goes Blook - Part 3

2007-12-04T10:03:00.000-08:00

I'm continuing my look at Ray Friesen's approach to blooking. Friesen is the author of A Cheese Related Mishap, YARG!, and Another Dirt Sandwich. Soon to be released are The Cupcakes of Doom and Um, I Think Your Piranha Are Broken.

I wrote to Friesen:

"I'm fascinated by the idea of using a distributor - the topic hasn't come up before. Any info on that would be most welcome. Also, I'm curious about your decision to create your own publishing company. I've had several authors who have gone that route for various reasons. I'd love to hear your rationale.
"I, too, self-published my book. Would you tell me (and my readers) what the difficulties were that you encountered (and how you overcame them!)?
One last thing - one of the comic authors/artists that wrote to me said that it was particularly daunting to get a comic into print. Any thoughts on that?

Friesen, ever the gentleman, replied:

"Using a distributor is wonderful, they really help with the bookstore connections (all the big chains and most of the independant stores refuse to deal with an individual author or publisher). Most distributors like companies with an established track record (I now publish 3 or 4 books a year)."

If anyone reading this has comments about their own decision to use or not to use a distributor, I'd love to hear from you. [I'm still waiting to hear from the publicist that one author used]

Friesen echoes several of the folks that I've mailed -- the book was the thing they cared most about, not the company. However, he's taken self-publishing several steps further than most of them.

"I never really decided to start my own company, it was a gradual thing xeroxing copies of my comics for friends, running cartoons in the newspaper, printing higher quantity collections, having a booth at big book and comic shows, professional printing, distribution, it's all sort of snowballed.
"Self-publishing has many difficulties, besides actually writing a book, technical things like ISBNs, convincing distributors and book stores to take a chance on you, working on publicity and promotion, (nobody can buy you book if they don't know it exists!) I just try and overcome them by doing them, and if it doens't work out quite right the first time, I just keep pushing. I've been doing this full time for 3 or 4 years now, and I'm still pretty much making it up as I go along.
"One of the most daunting things about getting a book into print is just affording it. You need to do a high quantity in order to get any sort of good resale price. The best way to get a comic into print is to start small, but think big."

I should note that according to his website, young Mr. Friesen, who has been at it "for 3 or 4 years now," is 19 years old! He's "been professionally cartooning for six years and contributed cartoons to local papers and national publications, as well as several online sites."

I'll be taking a look at the nitty-gritty of the printing process in the next post.

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A Web Comic Goes Blook

Part 1 **** Part 2 **** Part 4 **** Part 5

A Web Comic Goes Blook - Part 2

2007-12-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

In my last post I noted that I had written Ray Friesen, author of YARG!, about his entry in the Blooker competition. Young Mr. Friesen graciously replied:

"Actually, the YARG! book that is available now is all new material not derived from the webstrip. The web strip in fact chronicles the events that take place after the book. I do however have plans to collect the webstrips into volume 2. I was thinking of collecting all the strips into book format, maybe cutting 1 or 2, and bulking it up with some new stuff and a conclusion (the strip is a bit open ended.) The story is a narrative, so each strip advances the plot. I don't know if my books are technically blooks, I get them printed in larger quantities, and have a distributor that sells them to the book market. They are self published, I own a small publishing company to handle them. I have done a little searching for a publisher (self publishing is harder than you think) but have chosen to do it completely myself."

Okay, here's what I noted. According to the statement above YARG! is NOT a blook. I wrote back:

"I would agree with your decision that YARG! is not a blook. I don't mean for this to offend you, so please bear with me. You did enter it into the Blooker competition so I'm guessing that that you felt then the book qualified as a blook. Did you feel that the way a blook was described by the Lulu competition was misleading? We've had quite a discussion about it on my blog!"

Just to prove how goofy trying to determine a book's blookhood can be, check out Friesen's response:

"I believe I misunderstood what a blook was. I had a published book, and a blog with comic, all of which had the same characters, and I just assumed it was close enough."

But just to take the goofiness one step further, I've concluded from Friesen's About Page, that YARG! really is a blook. He said there that the book, Cheese Related Mishap, was published, then came the website, then came YARG! Since the characters remained constant, what else could YARG! be other than a blook! Ah me.

So is it a good thing or not that the Lulu Blooker competition leaves it up to the person or publisher submitting the entry as to whether it meets the criteria?

Friesen piqued my interest with his statements that he owns his own company and uses a distributor. I'll take a look at that in the next post.

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A Web Comic Goes Blook
Part 1 **** Part 3 **** Part 4 **** Part 5

A Web Comic Goes Blook - Part 1

2007-12-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's not even that I'm such a big fan of comics that I've looked at so many blooks based on web comics. The whole phenomenon is beyond me. However, there seems to be a real -- solid -- market; I would be a fool not to try and figure out what the fascination is.

This is a list of those I've looked at so far: Interviews with God; Sluggy Freelance; Totally Boned; Mom's Cancer; Dada Alphabet and Dada Detective; Dinosaur Comics: Huge Eyes, Beaks, Intelligence, and Ambition; The Best of Dinosaur Comics: 2003-2005 AD; Ambidextrous: Collection I; Ambidextrous: Collection II; Mojo the Sock Monkey; and Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!

Two others that I would at least tentatively include are Albert the Third - which is really an illustrated story and Adventures in Whopperland - which is a collection of political cartoons.

I'm sure that there will continue to be blooks as long as comics continue to be posted to the internet -- whether these print-versions are produced by the author/artist or by fans who print pages and collect them! But the main reason for considering the genre this week is the case of Ray Friesen, author of YARG! and other books.

To start with, take a trip to "Don't Eat Any Bugs," Friesen's website. He's posted a book trailer for his newest book, Another Dirt Sandwich. While you might believe that anyone can blook [Blurb et al certainly make it easy for you to turn your blog into a paperback!], the book trailer indicates that for some authors, blooking and publishing are a very big deal. I tend to agree.

For those of you have been following my blog since its beginning, you know that I don't take the designation blook lightly. In fact, several of the books, which were entered into the Lulu Blooker competition, appear not to be blooks at all. So the very first thing I do when I find a title on the competition's list is check to see if it belonged there.

On the About Page at "Don't Eat Any Bugs" Friesen states that "YARG! (The Online Strip) takes place after YARG! (the Graphic-Novel-of-a-Humorous-Persuasion) and features some of the same characters." Is that unclear? The first book was A Cheese Related Mishap: Lookit! Comedy & Mayhem Series Book 1. Then came the website. Then came YARG! Lookit! Comedy & Mayhem Series Book 2. It was the second book that was entered into the Blooker competition. I was reasonably sure that it would turn out to be a blook but I queried the author:

"I have a blog about blooks and found that YARG! had been entered in the Blooker competition. I would be interested in posting whatever you can tell me about how the blook came into being. For instance, does it include a set number of strips that appeared on your
website or blog? How did you choose which ones to include or are they a narrative? Are all your books really blooks? Are they self-published? If not, how did you find a publisher?

I'm going to take the next several posts to explore Friesen's responses.

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A Web Comic Goes Blook

Part 2 **** Part 3 **** Part 4 **** Part 5

Why Do Authors Hate the Word Blook?

2007-12-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

Back in July I posted about My Boyfriend is a Twat by Zoe McCarthy. This weekend the author left a comment that it was NOT a blook. Upon reading McCarthy's comment, I responded by saying that I stood corrected. I'm taking that back. I don't know where the aversion to the designation of blook comes from but at the moment I'm just a bit miffed.

Here at Blooking Central I use the definition provided by the Lulu Blooker Prize competition. "The content of your book must have been developed in a significant way online. This can range anywhere from an archive of your blog posts, reproduced verbatim, to general themes, research, or characters." In what way does the Twat book not meet this description? Even the advertisement at The Friday Project supports calling it a blook: "Developed from the hugely popular website My Boyfriend is a Twat, this book is a glorious celebration of living with a complete twat of a boyfriend."

In asserting book not blook, McCarthy referred me to her post of 2 March 2007. Here's a quote:

"And yes, I've been busy doing something else. Another project.
"A book.
"Don't laugh. Me. Book. Asked to write.
"It's not long - about five pages, but it's a book. And now I need to edit it.
"And cry.
"Because I feel sad.
"Bye bye job. Bye bye pain in the fucking neck. I'd be a terrible author if it weren't for the wonderful Clare who has a squeakier voice than me, but has a wonderful bedside manner. Clare is a truly wonderful person, and I'm sure that she is one of many behind the scenes there, but it is with her that I have had the most contact, and I bless and thank her for so many things." [The Clare referred to is Clare Christian of The Friday Project who published McCarthy' book.]

I'm guessing that the offer came AFTER the blog, probably because of the blog. I know, I truly do, that that doesn't make it a blook. [And lucky the author that such an offer comes to!] However, the publication carries the same name as the blog. That's a pretty good hint that it's a blook. Secondly, the theme is similar to or derived from the blog which satisfies the Blooker criteria. And that's good enough for me.
[I apologize for the mix-up on surnames. This post has been corrected.]

Inside System Storage

2007-11-29T10:33:00.001-08:00

Inside System Storage - Volume I is a brand new blook from Tony Pearson. According to his post, the blook "comprises the first twelve months of posts from this Inside System Storage blog, 165 posts in all, from September 1, 2006 to August 31, 2007." He goes on to list all the ways that he has previously published, then he says:

"But I can say this is my first blook, and as far as I can tell, the first blook from IBM's many bloggers on DeveloperWorks, and the first blook about the IT storage industry. I got the idea when I saw [Lulu Publishing] run a "blook" contest. The Lulu Blooker Prize is the world's first literary prize devoted to "blooks"--books based on blogs or other websites, including webcomics."

Like many bloggers who have blooked, Pearson added content:

"In addition to my blog posts, I provide additional insights and behind-the-scenes commentary. ... I have added a hefty 56-page Glossary of Acronyms and Terms (GOAT) with over 900 storage-related terms defined, which also doubles as an index back to the post (or posts) that use or further explain each term."

I had to chuckle when I got to Pearson's list of who might be interested in his blook. One item stood out - "Authors looking to write a blook themselves, to see how to format and structure a finished product."

New E-book Reader from Amazon

2007-11-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

Reader Views recently announced a service which will help you put your book into Kindle format for posting at Amazon. What is Kindle? You might well ask. I had no idea so I followed Reader Views' link to The New York Times and an article entitled "An E-Book Reader That Just May Catch On."

First, let me say that I had no idea there had been so many flops: "Rocket eBook Reader. Gemstar. Everybook. SoftBook. Librius Millennium Reader. The Sony Reader is in stores even now, priced at $350 and making literally dozens of sales."

Reading the Times' description highlights the drawbacks of e-book readers, which boil down to "they're not books."

The Kindle is a thin, 10-ounce slab of white plastic, tucked into a leatherette cover.
Its slight left-side thickening is supposed to suggest the feel of a paperback book folded back on your hand.
The screen uses the same astonishing E Ink technology that Sony’s Reader uses. It looks like black ink on light gray paper: no backlight, no glare, no eyestrain — and no need to turn it off, ever.
That’s because E Ink draws power only when you turn a page. ... You don’t turn this thing off; you just set it down, like a book.
The “ink” is so close to the surface of the screen, it looks like it’s been printed there, so reading is satisfying, immersive and natural.

The Times continues: "But the part that will really rock your world is the Kindle’s free wireless cellular broadband service." This enables Amazon to offer instant downloads of books: "The Kindle store offers best-seller lists, Most Popular lists and a Search box. The catalog includes 90,000 books so far, including 101 of the 112 currently listed as New York Times best sellers."

There's lots more excitement which you can read at the Times or at Amazon's blog.

Can We Trust the Gospels?

2007-11-21T08:53:00.000-08:00

"Irish Calvinist", Erik Raymond reported yesterday:

"Mark Roberts is the senior pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church and he blogs at http://www.markdroberts.com/. This book is a ‘blook’ that is, it is a series of articles that appeared on his blog and were of such a quality that Crossway approached him about publishing the series as a book."

The blook is titled Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This blook, like so many others, was NOT a publishing fluke. Kristen Jeffrey interviewed the author for Next-Wave Ezine and asked two questions that I would have asked :-)

Jeffrey: Can you explain how you came to write this book?
Roberts: This book began as a part of my blog (www.markdroberts.com). I had written a series debunking the Jesus Seminar. Given all the peculiarities of this group, showing their weaknesses wasn't too hard. But it occurred to me that I should do more than debunk the critics of the Gospels. I needed to make a positive case for believing in their reliability. So I wrote an extended blog series, "Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?." Someone at Crossway Books saw this series and thought it would make a good book. Eventually I edited what I had put up on my blog, added some new material, and voilà, a book (or as they say, a "blook," a book from a blog).
Jeffrey: How is your book’s origins as a blog reflected in the final product?
Roberts: When I blog, I am writing, not for academicians, but for a popular audience. Can We Trust the Gospels? continues to have this audience in mind. Moreover, I've constructed the book as a F.A.Q., a list of "frequently asked questions." This way a person can use the book to find answers to a specific question, such as "What sources did the Gospel writers use?" without reading through the whole book. Finally, because I began this book by publishing it online, I was able to get lots of feedback from readers, which enabled me to clarify or correct things I had original written.

Blogginess

A review at the Christian Book Reviews blog gives a sense of the blogginess that survived the transition from internet to paper and at the same time highlights what makes for a successful blog:

"Another successful aspect of Robert’s book is the way that Internet culture is integral to its style. It is written in a useful FAQ format in intimation of a website. Each chapter title is a different question he then addresses, such as: Can we know what the original manuscripts really said? … Are there contradictions in the gospels? … and … Do miracles undermine the reliability of the gospels? Most of these questions have come up through his blog, from which the book was born. He fittingly dubs his work a blook, and it really is one. The tone is conversational like much like a blog: straightforward, and easy to read. If you’re looking for an in-depth treatise, however, you should check out some more scholarly works. This book is perfect for the doubting or seeking lay reader. Plus, if you have questions, you can actually join in on a conversation in the discussion section of the website. So it is not merely conversational in tone, the book is connected to an actual dialogue."

Related post: "Ramblings on a Religious blook," RealLivePreacher.com by Gordon Atkinson.

Dating, Mating, and Marriage

2007-11-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

While I'm on my soapbox [by the way, if you don't remember soapboxes or where the expression came from, I'd like to recommend the movie Mrs. Santa Claus with Angela Lansbury. Sadie makes good use of her box!], I thought I'd mention a blog which does a good job of mixing old material with new technology, "Miss Abigail's Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage." The owner, Abigail Grotke, turned it into a blook (from Thunder's Mouth Press) which competed for Lulu's Blooker Prize.

Here's the hype from the site:

"Since 1998, Miss Abigail’s Time Warp Advice has provided classic advice for contemporary dilemmas to readers of all ages, from all walks of life on the Web. Author Abigail Grotke offers readers a chance to step back in time as she pulls out relevant quotes, tidbits, and words of wisdom from her collection of 1,000 classic advice books in a quest to solve modern-day problems.
"Combining the best of Miss Abigail’s question and answer columns, each chapter features sidebars containing freestanding tips or selections related to chapter topics. Retro book covers, advertisements, historical photographs, and other amusing, related ephemera serve to illustrate the book."

In the How I got here portion, Grotke writes:

"The Web site was started in 1998, as my contribution to a Webzine that was started up with some colleagues when I was working at the Smithsonian Institution. We were burned out on an intense CD-ROM project (remember CD-ROMs?) and felt a need to do something creative with our growing Web skills. (For a laugh check out an early version on Miss Abigail on Chew-The-Parasite.com, courtesy of the Internet Archive.) After Chew ceased its brief publication run, I moved Miss Abigail to my own site and later to this domain. My big "break" was in September of 1998, when Yahoo picked me as a Pick of the Week. From there the site grew in popularity and rave reviews continued for the next few years (but of course). I even had a weekly column in the London Times magazine for about a year and a half (September 2001 - February 2003). And now, this journey has led to a book!"

Now get this, the project's content "germ" came from a Salvation Army Thrift Store! Grotke and her roommate found a book on the art of dating in 1985 and twenty years later... well, you know the rest.

Journals, almanacs, and blogs! Oh my!

2007-11-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

I love the idea of blending old and new which is why I was so excited when I read Prairie Mary's post about transcribing her grandmother's journal. Mary does not intend to post snippets on a blog -- I was hoping for a contemporary blog with "old" content -- you know, create a blog for her grandmother and share the good stuff as if her gran was blogging. Sort of like what Jim Buie did with his mother's writings.

I've mentioned that possibility before here at Blooking Central. I'm not really sure why the idea intrigues me so ... . When I asked Mary about it she said: "It's VERY boring, the same thing over and over. But I might post an edited version. She's really worrying about the beginning of Social Security. We forget how desperate people were."

Boring? Maybe, depending on what you're looking for. I can recall reading a fascinating book, Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book, which is essentially his journal. Take a peek at the original. The first entry for March 30 reads "Purple hyacinth begins to bloom." Almost a week later he recorded "Narcissus and puckoon open." Not earth-shattering I know. But there's something about being connected across a thousand miles and two centuries by the simple mention of hyacinths and narcissus! [I have no idea what puckoon are but it might make for an interesting search :-) ]

Maybe you have something like that tucked away. I wrote to Going Like Sixty and here's his response: "I had an uncle that used to keep a almanac written on the wall where he worked. Sunrise, weather, crops, etc. (he worked at a milling company.) The walls were all wood and he wrote in pencil, but there was at least a decade of daily jottings."

You'll forgive me if the mention of an almanac reminded me of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, Sestina. We took a look at it in graduate school and I have it stuck in my head :-) thanks to Professor Eric Selinger.

Thinking blook? Think niche market

2007-11-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

1979 Semi-Finalist posted yesterday with a great idea for The Dairi Burger Here's what she said:

The blog The Dairi Burger, run by the brilliant "ihatewheat," is essentially a hilarious recap of the terrible old books that many of us (mostly women, but I’m sure there are a few boys out there as well) used to read as tweens.
I’m sure there would be rights/permissions issues, but considering the popularity of this blog (averaging around 900 hits a day) and the rabid fan base, "ihatewheat" would be smart to think about putting together a book deal based on her blog. I for one, would be first in line to purchase.

First off, I was a tad surprised that "ihatewheat" had made her stats public. I'm embarassed by my numbers, I guess, which is why I don't want to single out the two of you who faithfully read my posts here at Blooking Central. Be that as it may, the stats (of Dairi Burger, that is) do indicate a receptive audience.

Secondly, the mention of rights/permissions is a legitimate hurdle. [One could wonder just as easily about the use of cover images on the blog.] I can't imagine someone okaying the right to use the titles, etc. of their book(s) when they're being associated with eating disorders! Although, to be fair, "ihatewheat" does have a disclaimer: "This site is intended for entertainment. Please don’t take anything personally or seriously."

Still, the idea of a niche book is always a good one. And Lord only knows the size of the potential audience for a blook which reams Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club.

Digital Dish

2007-11-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

I've said it often, blooks are everywhere and you find them in the strangest places! Well, maybe the Lulu Blooker blog isn't a strange place to find blooks, but what about finding one in the comments section? Ironically, the gentleman who wrote that he would be submitting a blook in response to Lulu's announcement of the competition never did. The blook is Digital Dish and the gentleman is Owen Linderholm. Here's what he wrote in the comments:

"Very interesting idea. I would have thought categories based around single or multiple blogs and content developed substantially for a blog or intended for another medium would have been more interesting."

The reason for his mention of multiple blogs becomes readily apparent when you read the description of Digital Dish at Press for Change:

"Digital Dish is a book of astonishingly original food writing. It is a compilation of the best writing from 24 different food blogs across five seasons. The authors are true innovators in food writing and in cooking. They have been nominated for and have won food weblog awards and best weblog writing awards. They have been recommended by major food magazines like Gourmet. They have been interviewed in newspapers like The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Guardian in England. They create and write about food in ways that nobody else has.
"Digital Dish has been reviewed in the Trentonian Newspaper, Diablo Magazine and several online publications. The comments have all been unanimous - Digital Dish is a great read if you enjoy food. Funny, entertaining, witty and with great recipes. Diablo Magazine selected it as one of three cookbooks produced in the San Francisco East Bay to highlight as gifts and said, "some of the entries read like comedy monologues..."

Putting It Together

Il Forno, one of the participants, reported on May 13, 2005:

"In the past few months a bunch of food bloggers went on along their blogging way, while we waited for something special to happen. Behind the curtains one of us, Owen, decided food and blogs would make a great theme for the first book ever published from his new company, A Press for Change. Owen asked us to join in this effort and submit a handful of our best posts. 24 of us did and today the book has finally arrived from the printer."

Another participant, MeatHenge, wrote this: "Owen asked us to join in his first book and submit a handful of our best posts."

In an interview at SFist, Linderholm said that he had started out with 50 blogs that he thought were the best and sent out invitations. It shook out to 35, eventually ended with 24 foodies. He wrote on his own Tomatilla blog that it took 9 months. [Note, I'm pretty sure that you don't have to set up your own company to do this sort of thing :-) Although, obviously lots of folks have! You should follow the link if you've ever wondered what 3000 pounds of blooks look like lined up on your front lawn.]

Rationale

Breakfast with Pandora offered what I think is an excellent rationale for purchasing the blook. In so doing she accidentally, maybe purposely, identified the reason blooks make good sense:

"This is a plug for Digital Dish, an edited collection of over 80 food blog posts from 24 excellent online food writers (Press for Change Publishing, 2005). All of the entries are currently found on the Web, but editor Owen Linderholm has organized them, indexed them, written nice introductions for each of the authors, and generally produced a fine little volume which can act simultaneously as a cookbook, a volume of creative nonfiction, and a handy reference to the best food blogs out there.
"PS: Mainstream food books do not represent the best writing out there. They represent the most marketable writing out there. If you want to spend $29.95 on a celebrity cookbook, be my guest. But if you like good food writing by real, accessible people who generously share excellent recipes you yourself can make (plus easy access to near endless further reading online), click through to Digital Dish and buy one."

Two super interviews for those of you thinking about blooking or possibly publishing a collection of material from various blogs are to be found at SFist and SmallPress blog, "Owen Linderholm on Blog Author Content Publishing."

Lulu Blooker Prize Competition 2008

2007-11-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

I've been champing at the bit, waiting for the announcement of the 3rd Annual Lulu Blooker Prize competition. I've scanned message boards and blogs, read Lulu's newsletter but seen nary a word. I've posted everywhere that I could think of asking for information. I've even queried the folks at Lulu. All anyone could say was, "I'm pretty sure there'll be a contest ... ."

At long last I have received an email from Peter Freedman which assures me that yes, there will be a competition!

***

Hi Cheryl,

Your email has been forwarded to me since I organise the Blooker Prize, out of the UK.

Yes, I know, admire and enjoy your blog, and also really appreciate your mentions of the Blooker.

In answer to your question: Yes, there will be a third Blooker Prize. Details should be announced in the first quarter of 2008, with the results likely to be announced in the autumn/fall.

Apologies for the delay.

We will aim to keep you posted.

Regards,

Peter Freedman

***

So, Blook Folk, you've been given a bit of a reprieve, an extension of the deadline as it were. Go, post your bits on the web, and collect them into print! The Blooker is coming, the Blooker is coming!

1001 Flat World Tales Project

2007-11-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

"Thinking 2.0" posted about the newest iteration of Flat World Tales that will "link students from Korea, Honolulu, Australia (X2) and Atlanta." The post includes an excerpt from the project's FAQ:

What is The 1001 Flat World Tales Project?
This project takes the traditional language arts “Writing Workshop” into the 21st Century in three easy (but radical) ways:

it replaces pencil and paper (or MS Word) drafting, revising, and peer editing with a better (and more simple) writing tool: a wiki;
it expands the options for peer response and peer editing beyond the walls of your classroom–and your clock, city, nation, and culture–by enabling peer feedback, editing, and connection with students from around the world;
it replaces the “authentic” publishing of the 20th century classroom -– hallways, newsletters, literary journals, etc -– with authentic publishing in the 1001 Flat World Tales “blook”: a potentially endless series of stories from students around the world, inter-linked on individual student blogs.

While I applaud the effort, I disagree with this use of the word blook. And what's up with describing print publication as authentic -- inside quotemarks?

Dave's Timely Adventures

2007-11-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

One of the blooks entered in the Lulu Blooker Prize competition was Dave's Timely Adventures by Ben Kuttner. I went to the source blog but the old site is gone, but I located the updated one. There's a clever script in action - the pages of the book appear to flip - way cool. Anyone with information on it, let me know!

On the fourth page I read "Full manuscript is available to literary agents and publishers" accompanied by an email address. I wrote to Kuttner and asked:

"I looked for the original blog or site where I assume the book was posted. I would hazard a guess that as soon as it was in print form that you took it down. Is that true?

"Can you tell me anything about having your work online, e.g., feedback, critiques, suggestions, etc.?

"Also, I read that you were still looking for an agent or publisher. Can you tell me (and my readers) what sorts of things you've done to try to attract agents or publishers?"

I forgot to ask about his website statistics and if he's using the figures in trying to attract a publisher. Duh!

Kuttner replied:

"I did take the book down and actually stopped the Lulu - POD service. I only had the POD service to enter it into the Blooker awards.

"I received varied response ranging from brilliant and original to very
difficult to find a 'niche' in the market.

"I have been contacting publishers and agents and received from queries
several requests for the manuscript. The book has a Jewish theme so I may angle more towards this 'niche' market.

"Another project I am currently creating is turning the story into an audio book."

I'm interested in hearing from you Blook Folk whether you think the self-publishing move might have hurt or helped Kuttner's chances of finding an agent or publisher. What do you think about the plans for an audio book?

Absurdist Work Recycled

2007-11-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

Liz Kelly interviewed "14" for Celebritology on the Washington Post blog. The article was titled "Portrait of the Absurdist." Trust me, there's nothing absurd about the clever recycling of 14's work!

LK: What came first? The art ideas or the blog idea?

14: The art ideas came first. I was keeping all my celebrity gossip sketches and other bits of pop culture nonsense in a handmade book I called "Gallery of the Absurd." The original "Gallery of the Absurd" book was started six years ago and when blogs became easy and convenient, I decided to move my work from book form and onto the blogosphere. Interestingly, my work will move back into book form as I'm in negotiations with a publisher to create an illustrated book based on my blog. It's a very interesting cycle.

Yes, indeedy, very interesting!

TriggerStreet To Host Online Books

2007-11-14T08:27:00.001-08:00

Scott McKenzie (Rebirth) sent me a link to TriggerStreet where they have just begun accepting books for posting:

"Since its inception, TriggerStreet.com has been the place to go if you wanted to find exposure and feedback for your Screenplays and Short Films online. Now, in addition to being able to upload your Short Stories to the site, a section we launched earlier this year, you can now also upload Books that you have written."

Note, TriggerStreet recently celebrated five years in the biz of networking and promoting authors.

Virgin Mary Messages - Blook

2007-11-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

I caught the announcement of a blook, Messages from the Heart of Our Mother, aka "Virgin Mary Messages Paperback Book" and marveled at how mainstream blogging and the like have become. Then it occurred to me to question whether or not these messages had been posted prior to the publication or simultaneously. As regular readers will know, I use the definition of blook that was in place for the Blooker Prize competition - the material must appear in some form on the internet prior to being captured or reworked for print.

I went to the website, Messages from the Immaculate Heart, to see if I could unravel the mystery. Although the sitemap indicates that the earliest message was from October 25, 1997, I couldn't tell if it had been recorded for the web at that time, or for that matter, whether any of the others had. Let me digress for just a minute. The sitemap ("plan") really doesn't work for me. I clicked on 1997 and had to click January, February, etc. until I got to October before I found a message. Why have all those months listed if there's no content? Perhaps more disconcerting is the header for that entry: "MESSAGE #1240 from the Blessed Mother." On the one hand this suggests that there were messages (1239!) that aren't recorded. Does this mean simply that they weren't published? And I'm still left wondering what "published" means.

Little Mary's identity is not revealed. In fact, the author on the cover of the book is her spiritual advisor, Fr. Robert J. Fox. I suppose that's okay since it was he who compiled the messages and provided commentary. But I'm still not sure that this can be called a blook.

Marketable Depression

2007-11-13T08:12:00.001-08:00

Tony Pierce, who was responsible for the contest which resulted in the word blook, recently posted: "lauren white, or as i like to call her at all times, raymi the minx came out with a blook called marketable depression way back in 2005. ... in it we learn some things about our girl that sorta connect the dots from her blog." I'm pretty sure that this would function well as a definition of blook - a print-version which connects the miscellania of a blog in a coherent, structured way.

The blook in question was produced using Cafe Press, as were Pierce's blooks. Here's the synopsis:

Marketable Depression is a pretentious title I came up with one day when I was feeling clever. Ever since taking English Media in high school I have been fascinated with advertising and how the masses can be effectively manipulated and also how depression is being exploited and sold back to us and perhaps its about time we say something about it. There isnt much having to do with marketing in this book but there is a lot having to do with depression and alcohol. This book is about me and everything that has happened to me as a result of depression. Everything is true.

A trip to White's blog will leave you wondering, truly wondering, what the innards of this blook looks like.

Do People Buy Blooks - Books Crafted from Blogs?

2007-11-13T07:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Princess Smithers at "Are You Kidding Me?" I now know that the idea of blogging for book deals has made it into a book, Death by Chick Lit by Lynn Harris. Smithers had some other comments about blooks, evidently triggered simply by logging in: "When I signed onto Blogger about fifteen minutes ago there was a blurb on the home page about some random person's blog coming out as a book."

Smithers asked two questions worth considering. First, "Isn't the whole 'blogs as books' idea really just going backwards? And if the blog is easily accessed on the Internet, is anyone really going to bother to go out and buy the book?" The answer is obvious or publishers wouldn't bother publishing blooks. OTOH, Smithers is only nineteen, so maybe I should cite two examples for her enlightenment: Anonymous Lawyer and Julie & Julia. yes, Blook Folk, I've now read two blooks instead of confining all my research to the web. Aren't you proud of me?! Both blooks make extensive use of blog posts but much material was added or rewritten to create a structure similar to "normal" books, in Julie's case non-fiction, in Blachman's case fiction.

While I'm at it, I'd like to point out that blooks like Fred First's Slow Road Home is the sort of thing you want to curl up with on your lap in front of a fire or sitting in your glider sipping lemonade. Hard to do that with your lap top and still smell the pine in the Blue Ridge mountains.

Secondly, Smithers asked, "And what exactly does a blog have to say to be considered for a book?" Lord knows I've tried to answer that question in the last 460 posts!

Blook Look for November

2007-11-13T07:04:00.000-08:00

Catch my latest Blook Look, The Business Blook as Beta Publishing, at Future Perfect Publishing.

Reason and Rhyme 2006 Anthology

2007-11-08T10:32:00.001-08:00

Curiouser and curiouser! A blook called Reason and Rhyme 2006 Anthology was entered into the Blooker competition as having been authored by Sean J. Vaughan. One might assume that this was a slight error as most anthologies are edited not authored. What struck me, though, when I followed the link to the book at Reason & Rhyme blog, was that Lulu lists the editor as Fred Vaughan, not Sean J.! Add to this confusion the publisher who is listed as Russell Vaughan.

The book description from Lulu:

"ReasonAndRhyme.com assembles and hosts intellectual works of fiction and non-fiction; creative artistic works; and poetry. This book is a collection of all of these 2006 articles in a format ideal for easy reading. It includes original poetry; discussions of epic, Tanka, and s(h)ijo poetry forms; delightful stories; artwork including whimsical sketches; pieces of humor and satire; philosophical musings; thoughts on religion; scientific articles; the pontifications of Jessie the cat; politics; mathematics; chess; puzzles; health issues; and much more. Spend a weekend retreat cuddling with this Anthology or treat yourself to snippets of thoughtfulness over a warm morning coffee."

As regular readers you will know that I'm most interested in how the selections were made, how permissions from the various authors were obtained, and how the blook was laid out. Unfortunately, I could find no hints of this information anywhere. Perhaps someone who knows will drop us a line - I couldn't find contact info either :-(

There is a second book which carries the exact same description that the first was given, so I can only assume that Reason and Rhyme Anthology 2007 Volume 1 is a blook, too. However, this time the publisher of the first blook, Russell Vaughan, is credited as the editor.

Gulf War Vet on "Mission Saddam"

2007-11-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

Love getting notes from you folks! Here's Herb Eash's Q & A about his book Mission Saddam.

***

QUESTION: Was your blook originally posted on your website? Several books I've looked at were posted a chapter at a time. Or was it blogged - which is just a variation of the chapter by chapter dealie?

ANSWER: Yes, at http://www.herbeash.com/mission_saddam/ and http://www.herbeash.com/mission_saddam/war_reading.html and http://www.herbeash.com/mission_saddam/novel.html and http://www.herbeash.com/mission_saddam/shock_and_awe.html and http://www.lulu.com/browse/preview.php?fCID=360041.

QUESTION: Second, I'm assuming that the content was written in polished form before posting. What can you tell me about that piece of it? [I'm a little confused - the cover says it's a true story but elsewhere it's referred to as a novel] Did you reconstruct the narrative from a diary or letters?

ANSWER: In 1990/1991 I kept accurate written records on each day of my journey with my unit and details of our war and battles to free the Kuwaiti People. If it weren't for us going in to Iraq and getting as close as we did to Saddam he would have never taken us seriously and pulled his troops out of Kuwait. That was our mission -- to free Kuwait from Saddams' forces. I called it a novel because I was told that is what it is. I called it a true story because I lived it with a couple hundred thousand other soldiers.

QUESTION: Third, I would be interested in knowing how you've advertised your book. Did you do anything special to attract readers to your site, etc.?

ANSWER: Oh boy is that a loaded question ;-) I sent over 200 books out to the media, newspapers, talk shows, Oprah, Dr. Phil, FM Stations, Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, The Tonight Show, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Ellen D. and many others. I subscribed to YouTube.Com, MySpace.Com, Friendster.Com, Hi5.Com, RockYou.Com, EBO.Com, Windows Live, Hannity.Com, BlogSpot.Com, 43Things.com, and some others. I was on the Victoria Taft AM Talk Show and a couple articles in the Columbian News Paper.

The only thing I do is talk either in person or on the internet as we are doing right now to promote my book. I want people to know that Gulf War Illness is affecting thousands and what we did was to help another country survive. That was all the UN would let us do, they would not let us take out Saddam to help the Iraqi people. If we would have taken Saddam out then we would not have the problems we are having now because all these terrorists weren't in full numbers back then.

***

I appreciate Mr. Eash taking the time away from PTA [that's why he hadn't responded sooner :-) ] to share with us.

Mission Saddam

2007-11-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

One of the non-fiction blooks that was entered into the Blooker competition was Mission Saddam: 1990/91 Gulf War by Herb Eash. The book cover says that it's a true story which includes a special Gulf War timeline and GWI/GWS information [Gulf War Illness / Syndrome]. Unfortunately, or perhaps deliberately, Eash himself uses the word novel to refer to his writing.

At Eash's page on 43 Things he wrote:

"It took me 15 years to finish but I did it! I finished my novel about my deployment to the Middle East for the 1990/91 Gulf War. My novel gets really good reviews but I think people that haven’t checked it out think its just another war story? It’s not just another war story!! It is about a soldier who leaves his family and learns about other cultures and finds himself in an unfamilure place that is not like his usual surroundings."

At Eash's website I found an email address and wrote to him, asking for information on how the book came to be. Note, I could not find a blog or website where the information had been posted on the internet prior to publication. Since this is the one real requirement in defining a book as a blook, I was hoping Eash would provide a web address.

This is what I wrote:

Was your blook originally posted on your website? Several books I've looked at were posted a chapter at a time. Or was it blogged - which is just a variation of the chapter by chapter dealie?
Second, I'm assuming that the content was written in polished form before posting. What can you tell me about that piece of it? [I'm a little confused - the cover says it's a true story but elsewhere it's referred to as a novel] Did you reconstruct the narrative from a diary or letters?
Third, I would be interested in knowing how you've advertised your book. Did you do anything special to attract readers to your site, etc.?

Mr. Eash is perhaps still pondering my inquiries as he has not yet responded. But let's posit that you had a similar experience ten or fifteen years ago. Let's say you had a diary that you had kept, plus you have all the letters that you sent and received, what do you think would be the best way to go about writing your story?

Steve Stack's Blog to Blook Process

2007-11-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago I wrote about a blook, It is just you; not everything's shit by Steve Stack. I've been in recent contact with Mr. Stack and asked him for the details of his process - how did he transform that blog into a blook? This is his reply.

***

I decided to start the blog towards the end of last year. The Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? books were Christmas bestsellers and, whilst I thought they were very funny, I didn't completely subscribe to their grumpy view of the world. I thought it might be interesting to see if I could write about nice things in a way that people would find appealing. I found that it was quite hard to be funny, or at least mildly amusing, about things you actually like or admire. Writing about things that annoy you is easier, I think. But anyway, I figured I would give it a go and see what happened.

To start with I simply posted every time I thought of something new. I didn't have a huge long list to work through, but some entries inspired others and then friends and readers of the blog started piping up with suggestions as well. I put new material up as and when the mood took me and typed it straight into the blog software. After a while though I decided to keep records of the entries I had posted so began to transfer existing posts to Word and then wrote all new material in Word before cutting and pasting.

Early on in the blog's life I was contacted by The Friday Project. Quite a few people were linking to my site and they caught wind of it. They felt it would make a great book but only if I could turn it round in time for Christmas. I had quite a tight deadline and had to change the way I was approaching things. I had to take some time off to come up with a good long list of entries, research them and write them up. Once I was in the swing of it I found it lots of fun and was able to deliver the manuscript on time. Since then I have effectively been posting entries that have already been written for the book. Actually, that is not quite right, in the past couple of months more and more entries are spontaneous and unique - they don't feature in the book at all.

And that is pretty much how it went. My plan is to keep the blog going for one calendar year and then slow it down a bit. I have an idea for a new project which I will start up for 2008.

***

Thank you, Mr. Stack!

I just want to highlight a few things. First, our author made good use of the feedback from his readers. Second, he kept track of his posts; although he doesn't say so, I would guess he noticed as moved them into Word files that were beginning to sort into loose categories. The switch from free-wheeling blogwriting to a more considered, less-draft-like approach also deserves our attention. Again Stack doesn't say, but it appears this happened before he was approached by a publisher.

One last thought ... do we think the Christmas timing for Stack's blook was based on the publication of the series that triggered Stack's blog?

A Walk with Jane Austen

2007-11-02T07:45:00.001-07:00

I wrote back in July about a blook-to-be called A Walk with Jane Austen by Lori Smith. Now that the blook has been published, the author took a few moments to write me about how the blook came into being. Thanks!

****

I was familiar with blogging, but never seriously considered it because I felt like it was, um... a bit silly. But my brother introduced me to the idea of blooks. And in the fall of 2005, my friend Kristine started a blog (she also has a book of the same name coming out in the spring), and I saw how professional it was and how easy to do.

I was already working on my manuscript and book proposal, and as I looked at other blooks, thought this could be a good way to connect with an audience. I needed that from an emotional and practical standpoint. Writing is lonely, and to get feedback meant so much to me, to know that what I was writing was connecting with people. But also from perhaps a more mercenary perspective, I wanted to demonstrate to publishers that I was a marketeer, willing to work hard and take initiative to build an audience for my book.

So I started putting excerpts of the book out there, and connected with an audience, and it felt really good. It was also scary -- at times, very scary. I've never had any writing go "public" before it was edited, and I'm one of those writers who edits a lot and never likes my first drafts. So at times I felt incredibly vulnerable having bits of a book draft out there.

At the same time I was blogging, I signed with an agent (in the fall of '05, I believe), Beth Jusino of Alive Communications (www.alivecom.com) and we finalized the proposal (which is a long process -- I think it took us about four months). The response from publishers was wonderful, and we had two offers by May of '06. The book released on October 16 from WaterBrook Press ( www.waterbrookpress.com), the Christian division of Random House.

I also started the Jane Austen Quote of the Day (www.austenquotes.com ), to help connect with Austen fans, establish a reputation in the online Austen community, and of course help market the book.

In the beginning I planned to put the entire book online, but I got about a third of the way through and stopped posting excerpts. I think because I was feeling so vulnerable, and feeling like I didn't want to put the entire book online. It wasn't really a conscious decision. I kept meaning to post and for one reason or another it didn't happen. Part of me wanted to keep posting excerpts and part of me was hesitant and the hesitant part won out.

My year-long timeline at the beginning was overly optimistic! It's been a two-year process in total, and that's really not bad for the slow-moving publishing world.

I would recommend to any writer that they blog. It's enabled me to connect with a whole online Austen world, and provided so many promotional opportunities, and actually given me a bit of legitimacy, I think. I highly recommend it. I think the key is that it doesn't have to be deeply personal or like a diary, but topic-focused on what you're writing about.

Blook about Neuroblastoma

2007-11-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Looking for an extraordinary use of a website? Check out The Official Website of James Birrell Note, this link takes you to the updates page which looks like a variation of a blog archive. The book associated with this site is Ya Can't Let Cancer Ruin Your Day: The James Emails (Green Train Books) by Syd Birrell.

This is how Birrell describes the birth of the blook:

"I began writing emails to family and close friends to keep them up to date on James' condition," said Syd, "but soon I found myself drifting away from stark summaries of the medical challenges of the day, and instead began writing about our adventures in living. Our young daughter Rebecca said 'Just because you have cancer doesn’t mean you stop having good times.' So we put aside our grief and fear, and every day we looked for opportunities to live our dreams."

For regular readers this may sound somewhat familiar (see SharedBook, CarePages & Rebecca Rose). Ya Can't Let Cancer Ruin Your Day was entered in the Blooker competition.

My 100 Million Dollar Secret

2007-11-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

I had no idea that the same David Weinberger who wrote Small Pieces Loosely Joined had written another book, My 100 Million Dollar Secret. You have your choice of how you want to read it - the website is still there.

In fact, how you read it is the thing that caught my eye.

I'm hoping that you can see how he's laid the site out from this screenshot: Order a Printed Copy; Read it Online for Free - with each chapter numbered; Read it online for $4.00 - at Lulu.com; or Download for Free - MS Word file or PDF! There's even a Note for Teachers who wish to use the book to discuss moral or ethical issues raised in the book.

If you choose "Start Here", you begin at the beginning. At the bottom of Chapter One there's a button that will take you to Chapter Two. As would be expected, there are two arrows at the bottom of Chapter Two - one to take you to the next chapter and one which would take you to the previous chapter. There is also a link to the Home Page.

I wrote to Weinberger and he generously responded that this is NOT a blook. However, I'm recommending at least the components of his layout as something to keep in mind once your project is finished.

Daily Dose of Blarney

2007-10-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

I contacted Thomas Brogan whose blook, The Brogan Book: Your Daily Blarney, was a competitor for the Blooker Prize. I wanted to know how he turned his blog into a blook. This is his reply:

"Thanks for your interest in my book. The idea to turn my blogs into a book really took shape after a year of blogging. A friend of mine, who enjoyed reading my blog thought it would be nice to have all my blogs in book form so that it could be read at anytime, even without a computer. I thought it was a good idea too, so I decided to take a shot at getting the book published. I searched around for a publisher for my book and found that without putting a large chunk of my own money down, I wasn't going to get anything done.
"So, I finally decided to go with Lulu.com to publish the book. With their print-on-demand options I wouldn't have to buy 1000 of my books before they would publish my book. So I picked the publisher, now I had to figure out how to put the blogs into book form. Without a lot of other "blooks" out on the market at the time, I really had to come up with the format from scratch. After making change after change, I was finally able to come up with a format I was happy with.
"After going through the experience, I will say that blogging is a great way to get your writing creative juices going. Also it provides a great enviroment for feedback from potential readers.

I've written Mr. Brogan a follow-up email asking about that "figuring out how to put the blogs into book form." I'm hoping he'll stop by and tell us what he did. :-)

5th Month in Review

2007-10-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

Blooks

I guess I've been spending way too much time looking at online fiction and the like - let me know if you think so, too. My count of blooks that I've examined so far stands at 214. Unfortunately, this month only contributed 28 to the total. On the other hand, I began a new, once-a-month venture - Blook Looks - over at Future Perfect Publishing with Blogs From The Liberal Standpoint: 2004-2005 by Lawrence R. Velvel.

Here's the other 27:

Blooks-to-be

These are the ones that will be published in the near future:

Tuned In by David Meerman Scott, Phil Myers and Craig Stull
Bob Burke's Third Pig Detective Agency and
Dorien Grey's "A World Ago"

Author/Publisher Letters

I heard from several folks:

Methuselah's Daughter - authors John Eddy and Dean Esmay

Benny Thomas, author of Sufficient unto this Day

Jeremy Huggins, author of Gospel*

Horton Carew, author of Horton's Folly

Clare Christian, The Friday Project

William Roetzheim, Level 4 Press

Series

Only one series this month - Collaborate! I'm open to suggestions on other series that you might like to have me do. [Hint, hint!]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Collaborate! Part 3

2007-10-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

In Collaborate! Part 2 Jeff Cohen gave us valuable insights into the Murder by Committee project but an administrator or overseer has a much different perspective than a participant. In the case of the Great She Elephant and the Blovel we have a blending of the two positions. I'm grateful for her candor. I'm also including comments from Alda Kalda who worked on the Blovel. Between the two, they highlight the primary difficulties of a collaborative online work of fiction.

A while back I took a look at Blovel, an online collaborative work that seemed to have stalled. That's where my letter from Great She Elephant begins:

"The hiatus is certainly not deliberate but there has been quite a drop in enthusiasm levels. I think as a form, blovels have a few problems - it's very hard to write novel length works freeform, even for one person but trying to do any rigorous preplanning as a committee of people who don't even know each other is challenging. Initially, we tried to agree some basic plot points beforehand but got absolutely nowhere so just dived in. And there is also an inherent contradiction in that the moment you start caring about where the story is going, the fact that you can't control anyone else's contribution makes the exercise less satisfying. I certainly found that - if you look back at my contributions, they are primarily intended to unwind or neutralise contributions from some of the other authors, whom I could have quite happily taken an axe to after I read their stuff. I don't think I'd get involved in another blovel unless it involved people who knew each other well in a work sense and who were prepared to plan and then stick to the plan."

These comments raise several issues.

Should one person have the authority or be given the responsibility of keeping the story on track?
Should there be a story track in the first place?!
Should posts be reviewed before posting to ensure the author has stayed on track? [How stifling would that be?]

If you're considering working on a novel - collaboratively and online - I suggest you see GSE's post, "Right then" about whether the project should be abandoned. Be sure to read the comments.

GSE was not the only one who was disappointed in the project's outcome. Alda Kalda was one of the fifteen writers involved. [Let me interrupt myself to wonder along with you whether fifteen was too many.] Here's Alda's take on what happened:

"Yes - my feeling when working on the Blovel was that it was too incoherent and that it would have helped a lot if there had been a rough outline as to where it should be going and what the characters should be aiming at.
"That said, one of the things I discovered through the project was that, when writing a longer work, one of the most satisfying things is getting *inside* the action and getting to know characters intimately, and steering them in a way that is completely logical based on who they are in your mind (or, on occasion, being surprised when they act autonomously, albeit more logically than you, the writer, had foreseen). But when you have more people writing, they of course take a different view of the characters than you do, and may steer them in a very different direction, so when it comes to you to write, you hardly know that character, and you really don't know what to do with them. That was my experience, and it wasn't a feeling I relished. Maybe I'm just a control freak!
"Anyway, those are my thoughts from the top of my head. I don't know if a project like this can work out successfully -- but what I discovered was that it wasn't quite for me. At the outset, I envisioned something like the sort of game where you go around a circle and every person adds a new sentence to make a story, which can be a lot of fun -- but when it's A BOOK (or in this case a blovel) I found it really frustrating not to be able to live yourself into the world of the book in that meditative kind of way that makes writing so pleasurable - because it's really not your world."

So is there any way to make an novel-length collaborative online effort work? I'm listening.

***
Collaborate!

Part 1 ** Part 2 ** Part 3

Sufficient unto this Day

2007-10-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

One of the entries for the Blooker Prize competition was Benny Thomas's
Sufficient unto this Day. Unfortunately the source blog cannot be accessed unless you are a member, which I am not. [By the way, is anyone else getting tired of registering just so you can leave comments? Argh!] There is, however, a second blog, called "Sufficient-unto-this-day," which references the blook.

From this blog we learn that Thomas is Indian, sixty-somthing, and living in the Netherlands ... and that he has a second book which was published online. But I couldn't find the name of it. On the other hand his main page at Lulu.com has lots of books, some in English, some in Dutch.

Rather than try and content myself with so little information, I contacted Thomas who was happy to help me out. [I'm grateful for all these folks who have picked up English as a second or third language!]

"I have been posting short essays in two blogs for more than a year. I put all these together into some order and self-published through www.lulu.com. Sufficient unto this Day was made into a blook particularly for the 2007 Lulu blooker prize. Another book, The Life of Aesop, is also published through Lulu. At the moment I am busy trying to reformat these books with new font and new cover. Hopefully I may be able to release them in a fortnight.
"I have three picture books online. You may check these,- once again by typing out www.lul.com and entering my name benny thomas or bennymkje and clicking on 'go'( top right hand corner). Hope my reply has been useful."
Cheers,

Regular readers will know that I couldn't let The Life of Aesop escape scrutiny! "Was it a blook?" I asked. Thomas replied: "Aesop wasn't posted in the two blogs that I presently maintain. A few passages from here and there were posted. That is all." [Ah, but enough to call it a blook!] He also gave me the URLs: "http://thomasbenny-benny.blogspot.com/ and the other, where you have to sign in in order to read my posts."

I asked specifically about how the blook was constructed:

"Sufficient unto this Day was made into a blook from the bulk of posts I had already in the three blogs. I only rearranged the order and inserted new entries from my drafts of an earlier book on metaphysics to give the blook some order."

He was also kind enough to give me this from the Preface:

"The 364 entries are arranged for daily reading and the blook forms more or less a compilation of blogs that I had posted at three sites since April 1 2005. The title is borrowed from the words of Jesus,” Sufficient Unto This Day Is The Evil Thereof.”
"Wherever an asterisk is set against a name or concept it tells that additional information is given at the end. A glossary sounds fine in a
book but in a blook? I am not sure. But as the saying is, ‘what is good for the book is good for the blook.’ So there is one."

In his final note to me:

"On second thoughts this may also be of use: First make your material into word document and choose the format you want: pocketbook size or
6"x9"etc. You can make that on the standard format given by Lulu. Other online publishers may have their own format. I did it thru Lulu. Instructions given by them I followed to make the blook."

And why did he enter the Blooker competition? "I entered the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize by a fluke. I didn't know of Lulu or blooks till I chanced upon this competition."

Collaborate! - Part 2

2007-10-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

As promised here's my interview with Jeff Cohen, Editor of Mystery Morgue and head honcho for Murder by Committee.

Blooking Central: In your first response, Jeff, you mentioned that "the tough part lately has been getting authors interested in contributing to a project that requires them to read 30 chapters and write another in the space of a couple of weeks." I'm really curious about why they would have so little time to write?

Jeff Cohen: Mystery Morgue posts on the first of the month. That means I have to have all my copy in by, generously, the 25th. The new author has to read all the chapters (including the one just posted by the last
author, probably on the 25th or later) and write their own, in time
to meet our posting deadline. So it doesn't leave a lot of time.

BC: What can you tell me about the assignment or direction(s) that you have given your authors? Is there a word-minimum, for instance?

JC: I gave them no parameters at all. Write what you want, we generally aim at around 1,000 words, but feel free to go shorter or longer as the spirit moves you. In the beginning, we started with the idea of the author writing in the style of someone who inspired them to write, but most authors didn't get that, or weren't interested, so we abandoned it pretty quickly.

BC: Could you imagine a similar but smaller project that might have been more successful?

JC: It might have been best to have a definite end date, to say there would be twelve chapters, one year, and end it, and then start another the following year, maybe. As it was, the story went so insane that it was impossible to turn it into anything but a diversion for the author and the reader. I have no idea what it's about now.

BC: Any idea on statistics for readers?

JC: None. I'm not in charge of that. Sue or PJ might know. My guess is: not millions.

BC: Did you start with an outline? Or is everyone making the plot up as they go? How are you going to bring it to a conclusion?

JC: We started with a chapter written by Julia Spencer-Fleming (All Mortal Flesh) for a novel she never wrote. Julia was kind enough to hand it over to me, and I spun it off to the 29 other authors who contributed to the madness. How am I going to bring it to a conclusion? That's an excellent question. I wish I knew.

BC: Why would an author want to participate?

JC: For the free publicity; for the chance to write any damn thing they want. To be associated with the other authors who have participated. For fun.

BC: You said you hadn't considered publishing, but surely since self-publishing with Lulu is free, a book should at least be up for consideration, yes?

JC: No. Getting clearances from all 30 authors would be a nightmare, and I don't know that it could be edited into something coherent.

***

I appreciate Cohen taking the time to give us his perspective. Now I'd like to ask you, Blook Folk, what do you think might have made this project successful? I guess I'm defining successful as something that has continuity and can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Would an outline have helped? Was there a way to work ahead of the schedule do you think?

Part 3 will include a mini-interview with the Great She Elephant and continues the discussion of collaborative online fiction.

***
Collaborate!

Part 1 ** Part 2 ** Part 3

The Yeshua Gene

2007-10-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Peter Hall wrote only FOUR posts total on his blog, "the gob blog". Beyond a short reference to his debut novel (at 73!), The Yeshua Gene, I can't discover how this blook qualified for entry into the 2007 Blooker competition.

In his final post the day before Christmas, entitled "Jesus' brothers and sisters", Hall says:

"As an old person (73) I like to retreat into antiquity. The history of the 1st Century AD is absolutely fascinating, if only because it was one of the most interesting periods of history. The birth of Jesus Christ was that rarest of events - one that changed the course of world history.
"Using the magic gateways of Google, Wikipedia, etc., to knowledge and information, I have been able to trace 31 sources of reference to Christ's siblings.
"I have used this material to write my debut novel - The Yeshua Gene - published by Lulu.com, available in book form or as a download."

This suggests to me that the content did not appear on the web prior to publishing in print. Okay, so am I being too tough with my application of the definition? The raw material had to be web-based if Hall was Googling for it or looking it up in Wikipedia. Honestly, that doesn't seem like enough to me. Therefore it is not a blook, rather a book which represents a herculean (but fascinating) feat for an elderly gentleman. While I'm at it, the paperback is priced at $26.32. Pretty steep for a paperback.

Collaborate, collaborate! Dance to the Music

2007-10-25T13:47:00.001-07:00

GoingLikeSixty posted "Splenda - the alternative to sugar - a blook" and I gotta say, "This collaborative stuff is getting way out of hand." Imagine letting someone like GLS take a turn at crafting sentences!

But while we're on the subject, I've heard from Randy Richardson (Lost in the Ivy):

You remarked that you liked the online formatting and design for the [Char Dog] project. I’m responsible for that as well, but I have to confess to stealing some of the ideas for it from my publicist, PJ Nunn at Breakthrough Promotions, who had been running a similar serialized novel on her company website, “Murder by Committee,” written by the authors she represents. I don’t know how far along that project got, but I have a hunch that it ran into some of the same challenges that we faced with “Char Dog.”

I contacted Jeff Cohen, Editor of Mystery Morgue who oversees the Murder by Committee project. Here's his initial response:

"While Murder By Committee wasn't so much intended as a blook, I guess it does fit into that category. I'm afraid the tough part lately has been getting authors interested in contributing to a project that requires them to read 30 chapters and write another in the space of a couple of weeks. Perhaps the organization could have been better on
my part.

I want to point out a couple of things about what he said. First, regular readers will realize that I wouldn't refer to this as a blook because it has not yet appeared in print. Second, the timeframe that Cohen refers to is based on publishing one chapter a month. Which means that with the posting of Chapter 30 by Kathleen Tracy [author of over 30 books about celebrities and the entertainment industry] back in February, Murder by Committee has been in the works for 2 1/2 years! The last thing worth mentioning is that cumulative conundrum. It's enough to put quite a few folks off contributing.

I interviewed Cohen at length and will present that as Part 2. I also heard from Jane Adams, the Great She Elephant, partly responsible for the collaborative work Blovel. I'm hoping to hear from others involved in the project! which will make for Part 3. Maybe together we can dope out why collaborative fiction works don't work or discover measures that might help them succeed.

***
Collaborate!

Part 1 ** Part 2 ** Part 3

Get Your Book Deal Here

2007-10-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

Of the five titles which William Roetzheim authored:
Why Things Are: How Complexity Theory Answers Life’s Toughest Questions, Thoughts I Left Behind: Collected Poems, Frost, Eliot, and Old-School Software Development, the last is a blook. As the publisher at Level 4 Press he also brought Erik Rush's Annexing Mexico, which was a blook, into print. I wrote to Roetzheim asking him to tell us what he thinks would make a blog blook-worthy. This is his response.

***

To be frank, whether the content was previously published as a blog would not be relevant to my decision to publish or not publish a book. Here's the "perfect book," for us or any other publisher:

The book content contains things that people want to read. A successful blog may provide evidence of this.
The book is organized and clear so that it can be described correctly in a sentence or so;
The writing is solid; and
The author has a "platform" that -- the author -- can use to successfully sell the book.

The last point is the most neglected, yet it is the most important. I'll illustrate this as follows:

Situation A: You have a great but unknown author who has written a great book. The odds that this book will be published by a traditional publisher are one or two percent at best, and probably much less than that.
Situation B: You have a terrible writer who has a platform that will guarantee 50,000 copies sold of a book. This author has a 100% chance of getting published. The publisher will just hire a ghost writer and work with the author and the ghost writer to develop the right book to sell to the platform.

Most people think that it's the job of the publisher to sell the book. Publishers don't sell books. Publishers edit books, print books, and handle book distribution. Authors sell books, even with the major publishers.

We're smaller, so for us if an author had the first three points under control and the author could personally guarantee 2,500 copies of the book sold through their platform, we'd almost certainly publish the book.
I'd probably run the book concept past the major chains first (e.g., Barnes and Noble) just to be sure that they would be willing to stock the book, but the author's guarantee of sales would be the most important factor in my decision.

And just in case it's not obvious, a successful blog with an associated mailing list has all the earmarks of an effective platform.

William

****

The list of published titles from Level 4 Press is small, but, as with the other publishers who've written Blooking Central, good things are in the pipeline! If you check the publisher's website, you'll see that there's quite a range including children's books. In addition to the titles above, Level 4 Press has published:

Trapped Inside the Story by Leslie Cohen
Opening the Borders by Larry Blasko
The Best of Border Voices by Jack Webb (editor)
One Good Year by Larry Gaffney
Lightspeed: The Quest by E. Douglas Ward
Double Bubble Trouble by Dennis Goldberg
The Giant Book of Bedtime Stories: Classic Nursery Rhymes, Bible Stories, Fables, Parables, and Stories
The Giant Book of Poetry

Old School Blook

2007-10-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

I found Old-School Software Development: Lessons from a Software Survivor by William Roetzheim listed as one of the entries in the Blooker Prize competition. The source listed was a website that was identified as defunct. Which means I was pretty much at a dead-end.

However, I did find that you could take a peek at the innards of the blook at Level 4 Press, the publisher's website. The biography of the author, either at Amazon or at Level 4, will wow you.

Since the website is gone, I wrote to Roetzheim to see if he would tell me how the blook came to be. He graciously sent the following:

"I created an electronic newsletter called "Trends in Software Engineering
Process Management" or tsepm. The website was www.tsepm.com. Each month I created a new newsletter and sent out an email notification to subscribers, which ultimately numbered about 30,000. [Check the bio if you want to know how he got those numbers!] When I sold
my company I retained rights to the content I had developed, but the new
owners did not maintain the website and allowed the domain to lapse (in
hindsight, I should have excluded this from the sale). I then took the
content and organized it into a book, adding enough tie-in information to give the book continuity. It is currently one of the top selling books at http://www.level4press.com/, and I've had many ex-TSEPM subscribers thank me because they enjoy having a hard copy, bound version of the materials."

A couple things to note that I've mentioned before:

the author had specific knowledge or expertise;
he was also known for his writing;
he had site traffic that would make most of us salivate;
and he was careful to organize the content and
he added "tie-in information for continuity."

All things to keep in mind when you ask yourself if there's a blook in your blog.

Methuselah's Daughter

2007-10-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I tie into something that I can't seem to make heads nor tails of. It happened to me again with Methuselah's Daughter, which was entered into the Blooker Prize competition. I wrote to the co-authors, John Eddy and Dean Esmay, and asked if they could give me some help navigating the blog as well as give me some information on how the blook came into being.

John wrote back with a truly phenomenal story. [Dean will be leaving comments]. Enjoy and be sure to check the links John provided!

****

Cheryl --

It's a long story :)

Zsallia is a character who has been running through my imagination for more than 30 years at this point. I'd made abortive attempts to write her story in the past, but it really never worked out. In 2002 I discovered the world of blogs and decided this had to be something I could use to help me finally figure her out.

The blog is written by her and she never breaks character when she writes
there. The entries from 2002 to December of 2003 are all prior to when we began writing the novel. At that point it really was a character study and nothing more. By writing under her name and taking moderate measures to maintain anonymity I was able to engage other people in conversation and explore her reactions, as well as their reactions to her. Most readers seemed to enjoy the back and forth and were willing to suspend disbelief, some were openly hostile to the very idea and a few seemed to buy into the entire premise without hesitation.

I pulled the plug on the original blog in December 2003, intent on finally writing the novel. By that time 'Zsallia' had struck up an online
conversation with Dean Esmay and he asked her if he could edit the blog
postings into a book, so I came clean to him regarding who I was and what I was about and we agreed to work together. Initially I was the writer and he was sounding board and editor, but that quickly morphed into a full collaboration -- Dean had ideas that I liked and he also had the organization skills I lacked so he was able to keep us moving forward.

What you are seeing on the blog today are chapters of the novel we submitted for the Blooker Prize. The simplest way to read them is to click on the category "The Novel", roll it back to its oldest page, then read from the bottom up. Once I have all the chapters up I'll build a new page for them to make it more reader friendly.

How much of the blog is in the book? Both very much, and very little. Since the blog was really a character study its ultimate product is all through the book, but certain posts from the blog made their way into the book, though in very expanded and sometimes radically different forms.

"Scent of Fate" from January of 2003 became 15000 words on her early
life; in particular 4 years with the first man she actually called her
husband.
"The Bath" about 600 words written in July of 2003, became more than 45000 words describing her life in the Roman Republic circa 130BC.
"1000 Years In A Nutshell" made the transition almost unchanged as well as
"Michigan Territory -1835" which was broken into sections and serves as prelude to each of the four sections of the book.

Other bits and pieces of the blog are all through the book, such as the characters of Edna and Joshua, but the total content of the original blog in the book probably rests at about 20%.

The categories are a bit scattershot, but generally are tied to themes of posts. The Past is obviously stories from her past, The Present describes things she faces day-to-day in present time, Philosophy contains those posts where she offered her thoughts on herself and the world at large, and so on. Posts made after 2003 generally support the novel's storyline. Some posts are actually parts we wrote then edited out of the
final manuscript.

I've found it difficult to keep up the blog since the novel was written even though there is so much more to be told, but I'm making an effort to restart things these next few weeks, beginning with an upcoming post by Zsallia complaining about how the novel writers are making it hard for her to write on her own blog :). In fact I wish I had set out to make the chapter postings a separate page from the get-go, since the blog really should be read separate from the novel. The two touch each other but they are not identical in tone or content.

I hope this answers most of your questions, and Dean may chime in with more details (He'll tell you I'm stubborn and I cling too tightly to the character. He's right.).

Best regards,
John Eddy

****

I'm sure that if you have questions, either of the gentleman would be happy to answer them. So, ask away!

Dilbert writes a blook

2007-10-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks to GoingLikeSixty for alerting me to this!

Recently Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, wrote at the Dilbert blog:

"Did you notice that the The Dilbert Blog archive suspiciously disappeared last spring? A big publisher agreed with your frequent suggestions that I should turn the funnier posts into a book. So I did, and as part of that deal removed the book content from the Internet."

It's called Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice and the "big publisher" is Portfolio/Penguin.

The Levine Greenberg Literary Agency announced the deal on their website back in January. You can read their description of the blook [I'm not allowed to quote any of it without permission.] For a less biased look, here's this from Publishers Weekly (Amazon). It gives a real sense of the blogginess that made it to print:

"Adams builds his latest book ... out of entries from his blog, which results in a lot of short chapters and abrupt changes in topic. Still, some ongoing themes do emerge, as the bestselling cartoonist discusses his wedding plans ... ."

A snippet from Booklist (Amazon) says that there are "more than 150 short pieces covering every slice of life beyond the workplace." To my mind that sounds pretty bloggy! One of the reviewers at Amazon asked the question that I guess pretty much ought to be asked whenever the possibility of turning a blog into a blook comes up:

T. G. Johnson "Metaphysical Epistomologist" (USA)
"Seriously, why would anyone make a book out of a blog, except to make even more money? Even weirder, why would anyone buy someone's old blog posts? Clearly, Adams feels he isn't making enough money, or else he would have turned this deal down. Maybe it's good business for him, but it's ripping off the consumer who previously would have gotten to read his blog for free. I just hope he doesn't try it again in another year or two."

Annexing Mexico

2007-10-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

Another blook that was entered into the Blooker Prize competition is Annexing Mexico: Solving the Border Problem Through Annexation and Assimilation by Erik Rush. The source of the blook listed at the Blooker blog is Rush's website. I didn't immediately see anything that looked like what I was looking for. I did find out, however, that Rush is a prolific writer and has written for several outlets. I surmised that the blook was a compilation of columns, but wrote to him to be sure. This is his response:

"The genesis of the book was a column I did for WorldNetDaily in 2005. I've written a bunch of columns on the subject since, some of which were incorporated in the book. Most of it was newer material that had not appeared before and research to back up my assertions and to validate the viability of the annexation idea."

For those of you looking for a publisher for your blog, Rush's blook was published by Level 4 Press. They also published another blook, Old School Software Development by William Roetzheim.

The Story of Wendrich artHouse

2007-10-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Periodically, as I work my way through the list of entries in the Lulu Blooker Prize competition, I come across a volume which leaves me wondering about how a blook is defined. Early on I adopted the Blooker contest definition:

"A blook is a book with content that was developed in a significant way from material originally presented on a blog, webcomic or other website. This material includes the website's characters, themes, ideas or outline that ends up getting published as a printed book.

In some instances this definition was applied quite loosely by the folks who submitted their blooks. In fact, I've demonstrated that some were actually not blooks at all, having never appeared on the web. This isn't the case with About Us: The Story of Wendrich artHouse by Nicola Shirley Wendrich, but I do have some reservations about it.

If you go to the web address listed as the source for the blook, you'll quickly see that you're at a business site. Given the title, neither of us is surprised, right? Well, I know what I'm looking for, it's the About Page. Here I find a description of the book:

"Additional research accompanies the prophetic images on this site, whilst a fuller story of Harry and Nicola’s life journey leading to their current work can be read in her autobiographical book, “ABOUT US: The Story of Wendrich artHouse,” which can be freely downloaded from the home page or purchased as a paperback from the Gallery Shop."

This isn't much different than the way the book was described for the Blooker competition:

"ABOUT US: The Story of Wendrich artHouse gives the full picture behind our website, which has been set up to make available images of both spiritual and prophetic content. It is the true story of the spiritual awakenings and paths of the artists, and it details some of their unusual experiences."

But the piece from the website -- about the paperback book -- caught my eye [Note: "Currently the book is only available in Adobe (pdf) format."] I searched for the publisher using the author's name and only came up with the Blooker reference. Hmmm. It has an ISBN: 184728258X and the publication date is listed as January 2007 [just in time for the contest]. So what's the deal? Even if it had been self-published, Lulu would still carry it as an offering, as would BookLocker.com and a host of other print on demand companies. It strikes me as curious and I'm at a loss to explain it. Can somebody give me a likely scenario?

I must confess that I didn't download the PDF file. My interest is entirely with the dead tree version -- how it came to be and what its relation is to the source. I did, however, find that there's a poetry page. One might guess that some poems found their way into the paperback.

Here's hoping that Nicola or her husband Harry will stop by and give us the scoop.

Bigtrip

2007-10-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what your blog might look like in print? Then you really need to check out what Tim Leigh did with his family's travel blog. After reversing the order of the blog posts, Leigh captured the blog (I don't know how), then self-published using Lulu, calling the blook bigtrip. He's left the story for you to read in blog fashion as well as posted a PDF version. Of course, you could always buy either the paperback or PDF at Lulu! I don't want to short the gentleman any sales, but open the PDF on the blog and take a peek.

The Lulu description is terse, not even hinting at the unique perspective provided:

"In summer 2005 family Leigh took a big trip. With children aged four and one they travelled through America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. This is their journal which was originally published as a weblog."

To give you just a hint of the "insides" -- and I'm guessing this is why they entered it in the Blooker Prize competition:

"Interestingly, I was reprimanded twice in the Empire State building (at ground level I hasten to add) for carrying Ben on my shoulders. It's a health and safety issue. Apparently. Yet two blocks away someone would happily sell me a gun over the counter without batting an eyelid. I think their phrase is 'go figure'."

This is how they kept the site updated:

"We updated this site each day from wherever we could get a GPRS signal. We used a BlackBerry handheld to submit updates via email. It worked remarkably well."