The NYT has a little piece about Blurb, which formats blogs into books. But it's way too expensive for a blogger to use commercially to produce a book to sell to readers. It's really offered as a way to make an archive of your blog as a keepsake or a gift. A 300-page book costs $80, with only a small discount if you order multiples, and the shipping costs are also high.
Do readers really want to go back and read the old material on a blog? If they do, the archives are right there. I suppose it would be an interesting exercise to go back and find the posts that seem more enduring. To gather those posts together, out of the their original context, would make a completely different impression. Who knows if it would be good or not? Much of the fun of blogging lies in its transience. Like life itself.
March 2, 2006
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3 comments:
Ann
I suspect the reason turning blog posts into books is not viable for most bloggers, is because most bloggers do not write comprehensive articles. Most of them peddle pithy intros to other people's work; which means that their books would consist only of a bunch of tag lines that could not stand on their own.
Unlike news paper columnists, of course, who write comprehensive articles and often compile them in books for sale (eg. "Bushworld" by Maureen Dowd)
Thanks for sharing Blurb with us. I think it's pretty cool- I could put my valuable insights (aka rants) in one nice little package for a measly $80 bucks? And perhaps give them as Xmas gifts.
You can do the same thing for yourself on Lulu.com for free, basically, and the book will cost you $8.00. You can also sell your book off Lulu.com and get a royalties... I just got a check for $84.00!!!
Not much, but hey, my novel was already written and all I had to do was upload it to their site. Took all of half an hour. Now I've got copies at home on the book case- "Oh that, that's one of my novels. You didn't know I'm a writer?" and at work- "Tell you what, buy my book for fifteen bucks cash, just you to me, and you've got a deal."
Good fun! And eventually I can use these funds to pay for an XBox360 or a trip to Vegas, guilt free!
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