Is your blog book material or just Internet fodder? You might not think the individual posts of your blog add up to a book, but this is a growing trend in publishing. Mashable offers a list of some famous blogs that did well as books like Ben Huh’s “Fail Nation” and Pamela Slim’s “Escape from Cubicle Nation.”
Even social media is making the publishing grade. The Honest Toddler, Bunmi Laditan, started her pundit toddler persona sending out tweets to work off the frustration off trying to raise her own mini me. The popularity of her character initally lead to a blog, but she soon graduated to author with the release of “The Honest Toddler: A Child’s Guide to Parenting." Okay, so maybe your blog is a book, but how do you go about making the transition from blogger to sucessful author?
Make It Unique and Funny
A blog about your eczema is probably not going to be a bestselling book. Like anything in this industry, you need a hook – something that draws your audience in. The market is over saturated, so find a unique angle that helps you compete both as a blogger and self-publishing author. Let's look back at the list of bestseller's for a minute.
- Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Charactors or Less
- Rules for my Unborn Son
- F.U. Penguin: Tell Cute Animals What's What.
Do you notice the one thing most blogs that do this right have? Humor. Really, who tells a cute animal to F.U.? Only someone looking for laughs.
Create a Plan
There is more to this conversion than just connecting the posts together. Plan ahead and flesh out the contents of your book piece by piece, so you create your blog posts around it. If you are working from an already published blog, use your book outline to develop future entries.
Make the Rounds
Experienced writers advise newbies to read within their genre if they want to find success. This same concept holds true if you want to be a good blogger. Spend time reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, especially ones with a substantial following. Look closely at the writing style, how they get ideas across and what tricks they use to draw in readers.
Use the Blog to Sell the Book and Vice Versa
If your blog has a decent following, in other words someone other than your mom reads it, you can use that to your advantage. How about letting your readers pick the name of the book? Create a free ebook sampler available for download from your blog. Find ways to use the blog not just for ideation, but as a book promotion tool, as well. In return, book sales will draw more traffic to the blog.
Book to blog – it's proven to be a winning combination. It many ways this technique is better than traditional ways of writing a book, because you are promoting your work as you go.
Keep the Faith and May the Force be With You!
