We’ve posted about bloggers getting book deals in the past, and that trend certainly seems here to stay. The latest: On April 27, 2010, Alan Beard and Alec McNayr’s site Historical Tweets will be published as a book by Villard.

A couple weeks ago Trisha posted a handy list of tweeters in the book world. Well, this site’s premise is that Twitter has always existed, and historical figures have been communicating to each other in 140 characters or less since the beginning of time. (The most popular post on the site: “anyone got a more creative way of saying ‘87 years?’” HonestAbe on Nov. 18, 1863.)

Is there anyone out there whom you’d like to see with a Twitter account? Do you keep up with any of your favorite authors on Twitter?

It Sucked and then I Cried Heather B. Armstrong

When I first heard of Heather Armstrong, she made me mad. A woman who supported her family–kid, husband, and dog?–just by blogging? Seriously? WTF? Blogging?? She must be the suckiest sell-out ever!

I rejected her on principle.

Then I started reading.

Heather is the cool girl you’d die to be friends with in real life, because she’d make the best margaritas, have the funkiest nail polish colors even if her mani/pedi wasn’t perfect, and the most catalog-amazing house Ev-Ah. Her writing is truly laugh-out-loud funny (no stupid abbreviations necessary), her quirks are endearing, (ALL CAPS ARE FRIGGIN’ AWESOME WHEN USED IN MODERATION!) AND–whoops! and she’s been through some real shit.

In Sucked & Cried, Armstrong writes about getting pregnant, freaking out, her crazy family, her amazing husband, her own (very real) craziness, her recovery, and her unmeasurable love for her supersweet daughter. What could be bad about this? one might wonder.

Simple. I paid $16however much for a hardbound copy of what I could (mostly) read for free online.

I love Heather Armstrong. I wish her well. I just don’t get the trend of turning blogs into books and not putting tons of new content into them. I was actually excited, anticipating the arrival of Sucked & Criedfrom Amazon, and then when it arrived and I dove in, I was all… Oh.

I think the best bloggers out there should get paid for their work. They should get ad revenue, they should charge per post if they wanted to (I’d pay 50 cents to read one of Heather’s blog posts, and a cool quarter for one of her photo-plus-captions easily. And all that change, from all over the country, would most def add up for her, I’m sure.

But honestly, after this experience, I doubt I’ll be shelling out for anyone’s blog-to-book*. Not Cake Wrecks (Sorry Cake Wrecks! I did buy a shirt from your Cafe Press store!) Not Picture is Unrelated. Certainly not Lolcats.

I love me some internet entertainment, but paying for a “real” copy of something that exists primarily, firstly, on the internet just kind of sucks. And when there’s a limited amount of new content, well, double suck.

Sorry Heather. Love you. But next time I want more.

*I might be very tempted to buy a Sweet Juniper product because they do kick ass. Go Jim and Wood! Publish something already!

p.s. Yes, savvy readers will note that there’s no direct mention of the name of Heather’s blog. There is a hidden one, however. For fuck’s sake, though, if you don’t know who she is then just google her. You must be the only one on the planet, though…

Well, it’s happened. Incredibly true and funny (and funny ’cause it’s true!) blogsite Stuff White People Like is being turned into a book. Like, of course it is. And I’m sure it’ll be a really funny book. But here’s the thing: blogs are blogs because they’re not books, or anything else, really. They’re blogs. Blogs based on books are just risky, because it’s not a given that the material contained within a blog will be either funny or interesting in book form. I think it’s great that publishers are taking bloggers seriously and trolling the ’sphere to find promising new writing talent, for sure, but lots of web traffic does not necessarily equal lots of book sales. Why? Because you can read blogs for free! I think the best (and most successful, although I can’t back that up) blogs-to-books stories are where the blog is a jumping off point for the book–the inspiration, the foundation, maybe a few especially favorite entries are edited/rewritten into essays–but, in the end, the book is an entirely new entity. Or so I think. I’m really not an expert. But it just seems like publishers are just optioning blogs as books nowadays because it seems like the work is already done, or nearly done, but I can’t imagine that it’s any easier to wrangle a blog between a cover than it is an unwieldy but promising manuscript. If you know better, please school me (and I mean that).

Eoin Purcell

I’m quite pleased with how this came out in the end.

The Irish blook

29.01.08

Blogging has been brewing up a media storm in the Irish media. Two weeks ago, well known commentator, John Waters, attacked the entire blogosphere on Newstalk, one of Ireland’s talk radio stations.

Following the lead of Andrew Keen in his book The Cult of the Amateur, John Waters said that blogs were “stupid”, “entirely cynical”, “entirely negative” and equivalent to the “wall of a toilet”. He also attacked the lack of authority and suggested that much of the internet was given over to pornography and self-gratification (of which he believes blogging to be an extension).

Unsurprisingly he was rebutted and lampooned by the blogging fraternity. Eventually he came head to head with one of Ireland’s more erudite bloggers Feargal Crehan (a barrister) and the results can be heard here.

Whatever about the merits of Waters’ arguments, they do raise the question of blogging’s role in Irish publishing. There are more than a few success stories in the field.

For more go Here

(Links are a bit tricksy for some reason though!

Enjoying P&Ls (is that odd?)
Eoin