Blogs Turned Books

A New Forum (Blogging) Inspires the Old (Books)
Article from the New York Times on blogs that have been turned into books.

Several factors make bloggers' books attractive to agents and editors. "Word-of-mouth buzz is much more valuable than paid advertising," Ms. Lee said. "I think if there's a reason people come to your site, there's a built-in audience."

Publishers were always happy to have authors who already have a platform, said Mr. Hornfischer, who also has started contacting other bloggers he enjoys. That built-in blog audience is growing; because the Web has no boundaries, it is international. The Perseus Development Corporation, a research-and-development firm that studies online trends, estimates there will be roughly 10 million hosted Web logs by the end of the year. Nearly 90 percent of blogs, Perseus says, are created by people under 30.

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Not everyone, though, is convinced that bloggers' skills translate to longer-form books. "The style of blog writing is more oriented towards short form one page, set in the moment," said Scott Rettberg, an assistant professor of new media studies at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Pomona. "The sense of immediacy is quite important in blogs."

Even bloggers who have sold books agree that there is one topic they would not focus on in the longer-form novel: blogging. "I don't know how interesting a book just about the blogosphere would be," Ms. Cox said. "It'd just be people sitting in front of their computers."

(That's right. We just sit here all day, right? lol..)