The WMF Archives: Create a Blog that Becomes a Book

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Create a Blog that Becomes a Book

9:53 AM

By Lindsay Woolman

I’ve been reading a book called The Happiness Project that talks about making small changes to make to increase happiness over the course of a year. One of the goals of the author was her decision to start a personal blog—and it is interesting to see that parts of her blog became the content for the book.

This has definitely got me thinking about restarting a blog for a personal project that might eventually be a print book or eBook, or even help me to break into more markets. This is one of the best times ever to write and publish your book because distribution is easier than ever before. It’s also one of the hardest times because if you self-publish, you’re in charge of everything.

Still, it’s an exciting prospect because one of the ways that blogs became successful is because the author publishes and sells a book. The two platforms really work hand-in-hand. Here’s why:

Participation: A blog gives you a taste of how readers might respond to your book. You can grow the project based on the comments or the most popular blog posts. You can also see what’s not working. If a particular blog topic doesn’t go over well, it might not go over well in a book either. You can also have parts of your book with actual content from the blog, such as comments that drive your point in a different font.

Built-in Readers: There is the potential to have a readership already in place that you can tap into. If you take your subject matter even deeper, you might have the potential of selling to people. This is even a way to gain attention from a publisher or literary agent who is looking for proactive writers. My agent asked me when we started discuss me self-publishing my novel, “Do you have a blog?”

It Gets You Writing: Many writers are writing to pay the bills, but if you have a topic of personal interest, it is rewarding to write for yourself. Good books seem to come out of passion—a person has a driving need to create a particular book—and they start exploring. Starting with a blog is a low-pressure way to take this leap. If a blog is constantly on your mind, it’s likely that the book equivalent will be too.

It’s a Sweet Marketing Tool: Even if you think you can write a book and get away without blogging about it, keep in mind that these days blogs are a primary way to advertise. Your blog could even be off topic if you’re known. The line of privacy has been blurred and readers are accustomed to knowing personal details about authors and their daily lives.

Blogs that Became Books

Here is a list of some well-known blogs that became books (on a variety of topics). Ones that seem to go over particularly well seem to be memoirs or personal subjects.

The Happiness Project
Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
There are also books from WM bloggers to check out.

If you’re a fellow writer and wrote a book based on your blog about writing, please share it in the comments. I’d also be curious to hear what the process was like turning your blog into a book.

Photo via Flickr user » Zitona «

Labels: blogging tips, famous writers, Lindsay Woolman, writing books

21 comments:

Pam Houghton said...: I love the title of Crazy Aunt Purl's blog. :-); January 19, 2011 1:26 PM
Wunmi said...: Great information. Thanks for posting.; January 19, 2011 5:16 PM
Carol Tice said...: I haven't -- yet! -- but I know the Fake AP Style Book got one, and also Hyperbole and a Half - I heard her great cartoon-y site also got a book deal.

And of course there's the Tweeter Sh*&#! My Dad Says, now a TV series.; January 19, 2011 5:35 PM
Richard I. Garber said...: You might call this approach either “book writing as bricklaying” or “no words left behind.” In 2006 Seth Godin made Small is the New Big from his blog posts.

There also is a venerable tradition of newspaper and magazine columnists making books from collections of their columns. Steve Adubato built Make the Connection from his columns.

One of the most interesting columnists is Henry Petroski, a professor of both history and civil engineering at Duke University who writes a very geeky column in American Scientist magazine. He has done this columns into books game several times, like Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering. Henry retained some rights to his columns, so they are not reprinted in electronic databases.

Of course long ago Charles Dickens first packaged his novels as serials. When you look up David Copperfield on Wikipedia, you’ll find that it was sold in nineteen installments, each for a shilling.

By the way, someday I’m going to recycle this comment as a blog post.; January 24, 2011 1:55 PM
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Interesting topic indeed.; October 15, 2011 12:27 AM
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Electronic Cigarette said...: It is a great prospect indeed. Having your blog turned into a book, that was pretty awesome. I hope this would inspire others too.; December 6, 2011 7:04 AM
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Nancy; January 19, 2012 12:47 PM
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