Blogs to Books Roundup

Did Biz Stone's article How to Get a Book Deal with your Blog start the phenomenon? I think so. Tartan Online has a review of one of the first blog-to-book attempts that I posted about, Jen Lancaster's Bitter is the New Black. Another blog to book success storyReader, I Dated Him appears in the New York Times (registration required.) "Ms. Klein's blog is a voyeur's playground, with many photos of Ms. Klein, her friends and the swanky places they go. But the allure is muted by accounts of Ms. Klein's childhood summers at fat camp, the husband she says cheated on her when she was pregnant, her subsequent abortion and her ongoing quest for love. Nothing, it seems, is too private not to share with readers." And it lead to a book deal for Straight Up and Dirty.

Even Blogger Buzz jumped into the action to announce successes.

As soon as the craze caught on, techies whipped up software to automate the process. zdnet.com and news.com show the same video about blurb.com

From the floor of Demo '06, Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb, gives CNET's Rafe Needleman a first look at her blog-to-book application. With several templates to choose from, including travel and poetry, this beta application has support for both Mac and PC. 3 minutes 44 seconds.

BlogCollector is yet another blog to book service. However, when I visited BlogBinders.com, the original blog-to-book software, this surprise awaited:

Going out of business
Sadly the time has come for us to close our doors. We currently do not have the funding or resources to make this dream a bigger reality. We thank all of our loyal users who have turned their weblog into a real bound book. BlogBinders refers you to www.lulu.com - a great company that prints one-off books. Developer, printer or investor? Contact purchase AT blogbinders.com if you are interested in purchasing BlogBinders (domain, user list(non-spam use), technologies).

But, of course, we've also seen the dawning of a new writing award, the Blooker, sponsored by Lulu.com, a company which facilitates self-publishing and encourages writers to convert their blogs to books.

The NY Times published about an interesting twist in A First Blog of the First Draft of History: "Closing the loop, the project will be financed in an old-media way: A major French publisher is expected to turn the blog into a book, and the proceeds will go toward supporting blogging in the banlieue. "

And for those who register for the Writer's Digest forum, a thread about the blog to book phenom.

[blogging books]