Blogging Out a Book
You’ve likely already heard this idea: Pump out your “book project” as a blog. Post by post. Chapter by chapter. Until you’re finished. Then gather up all your posts and hand them over to your publisher.
Voila! Finished book.
NOTE: Assume I’m talking about non-fiction projects. Fiction is just a different beast altogether.
Here are a mish-mash of notes and points on why this may or may not be a good idea:
- You may develop a “following,” in which case, you’ve just done some killer pre-publication marketing. Talk about hitting the ground running when your book finally makes it to print.
Chances are, that following won’t be accidental. You obviously should start promoting the blog — and hence, the book — immediately (translation: way before the book is finished). - If you do manage to develop a following, this may actually help you finish the project in the first place. As if I need to point out the tons of unfinished writing projects out there. This “reader pressure” to finish may actually be quite helpful, particularly if you like to do projects on spec.
- If you don’t intend on finishing your project as quickly as you can, however, this may not be something you’ll want to do unless there really is something unique and/or special that only you can bring to this project. If your idea indeed has commercial merit, your competition will be watching very closely. And they will finish the job if you move too slowly.
- Along those lines, here’s one way to add something unique or special to the project: Don’t publicly post all of the work. Keep a third under wraps, to be released only in the print version, but make sure everyone knows you’re doing this. Obviously won’t work with all subjects… then again, if you start thinking and planning your work like this from the very start of your project, why not?
Anyway, those are just the first few things that come immediately to mind. I’ve personally never tried this, but it doesn’t seem all that complicated. In theory anyway.
Have any thoughts or criticisms? Ideas? Know of anyone who has done/is doing this? Please comment below. I most certainly will do additional posts if more ideas and thoughts come to me on the matter.
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8 Responses to “Blogging Out a Book”
By Michael Werner on Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
E-Man:
Although he doesn’t do this in a systematic way, most of what the prolific writer and idea-man Seth Godin does is released first into the free world before it ever goes into for-pay print editions. He learned a long time ago, and was the pioneer actually, that giving stuff away free (valuable stuff, not just toss offs) led to greater sales of priced goodies.
DM Werner
By Wordpreneur on Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
Good to know and makes sense. Does he do it in blog format?
ees
By Cheryl Hagedorn on Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
I’m not sure why you make the distinction between fiction and non-fiction as the “tips” seem applicable to both. You might be interested in Robert Worstell’s post about how he blogged what came to mind, then used a combination of emailing himself each post and sorting them topically with gmail’s search utility to produce his blook.
By Wordpreneur on Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
Hello Cheryl, welcome to Wordpreneur. Will check out Worstell… thanks for the suggestion.
As for differentiating between fiction and non, imo the notion of competition and how it affects what you do (not to mention your business prospects) differs between both.
ees
By Jo on Oct 21, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the posting*
*
This seems like a great idea ~ although I wonder:
Are there any concerns about the work/ideas being stolen before you can get them to a publisher yourself? Do any publishers consider the content “already published” (I know some magazines consider even blogged content as having been published) and therefore become less likely to snatch it up?
*
Thanks!
By Troped on Oct 21, 2007 | Reply
The way I see it, all movies have teasers or trailers but the existence of “teaser” material doesn’t guarantee success–or even necessarily help sell tickets. I think if you’ve got material (fiction or non) that readers find enjoyable, they’ll buy the book because they want to have the content, it’s portable, its on a medium that many people like, and because if you’ve done a good job of editing, it should be more concise. I think the blog should be the unabrdiged version, sidebars, tangents, extra supporting evidence, backstory et al. The book should be the linear abridged concise vesion of the writing. There’s no need to hide content from the readers—if they like what you’ve done on your blog, they’ll find value in paying to have it in a more compact, durable, convenient medium.
By Wordpreneur on Oct 22, 2007 | Reply
Hello Jo
Yes, I would say that blogged content is published. Electronically anyway. A lot will depend on what rights the publisher wants to purchase. If this is a concern, certainly let all involved parties know exactly what you’re doing (or plan to do).
Theft … yes, it’s a concern. Pretty much why I suggested the idea of leaving a bit out at the end. They can’t steal that until you’ve published.
ees
By Wordpreneur on Oct 22, 2007 | Reply
Hello Troped
As far as NF goes, I obviously disagree with you. C’est la vie.
Your comments, however, seem to revolve around works of fiction. See my 3rd paragraph in the post.
For the record, I don’t put my fiction online before it hits print. You guys have fun… if it works for you, great! I still do mine elsewhere first. And it has absolutely nothing to do with theft;
ees