Any tips for turning the blog into a book?

[peekyboo]

Hi all,

I've been doing my blog for only a few months, so I'm not ready to put it into a book just yet, but I'm inching towards having 100,000 words in total, so it's definitely getting there!
I wondered what sort of approach other people have used, when putting their blogs into book form? Do you tidy up/rewrite the posts, then present them in much the same way as a blog or do you rewrite the whole thing, just using the blog as 'meat for the pie'??
I've written my own fiction and non-fiction books before, but I've never had this kind of material to start with as blogging is still very new for me, so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Amanda

www.aspie-girl.blogspot.co.uk/

[colinkelly]

Amanda - good luck with it - that seems like a power of writing you've done so far. I've aware of several people who have self published books and they all said similar things: writing the book was easy, going through the self publishing was easy, but getting the word out and trying to sell the thing was incredibly difficult! The only advice I can give you is to persevere, to focus on a niche and dominate it (but make sure the niche is big enough to give the book some sort of audience) and try to make your content as original and unique as possible. And when you do publish, don't expect it to sell or get any attention by magic. You'll need a strategy to get noticed and it'll likely take up just as much time as the writing itself! That said, you'll no doubt know several people who've made a success of it (or perhaps other forum members do) so be encouraged, give it your all and good luck!

[PeriPathetic]

If you're after feedback, I've heard good things about this service although I've not used it myself.

[MmeGuillotine]

My first novel (I've published three) started life as a blog many moons ago and when I decided to self publish it about 18 months ago, I just organised the posts into book form and away I went. I've sold about 20,000 books since then and was able to become a full time novelist at the start of 2012 so I'm doing okay. :)

I'm working on another blog book at the moment - this time a non fiction piece based on the various articles that I've posted about Marie Antoinette and her court. I've started by pasting the relevant articles into Scrivener and am now tidying them up and adding new bits as well as writing about twice as many entirely new articles to fit around them.

However, if I was telling one cohesive story then I think I would use the posts as a springboard to rewrite the whole thing as an actual book rather than a series of articles. Both approaches seem to work for people though.

As for promotion, I think it's very difficult if you have a decent blog readership. I don't do any active promotion of my books - all I do is have links to them on my blog and that's it. They barely get a mention on my Twitter feed etc. I certainly don't spend any time promoting and what time I spend is in no way comparable to the amount of time that I spend writing! ;)

[MmeGuillotine]

Er, that should read 'I DON'T think it's very difficult to promote a book if you have a decent blog readership'. The only writers I know who struggle when it comes to promoting their books are the ones who have a miniscule circle of followers to their blog/Twitter/FB and so have trouble getting the word out or alternatively misuse their Twitter account by ONLY talking their books.

[peekyboo]

Thanks for the advice!

I'm inclined to keep it as fluid as possible. A few of the blog posts lend themselves to being grouped together, under a general theme, so I might do that and see how it reads, rather than changing it into more of a book form. If it doesn't work, I can always do a fuller re-write later.
I've sold the odd book via the blog, in my non-fiction, titles, but they have nothing to do with aspergers, so I count those sales as a bonus. I would hopefully sell more of the aspie blog book because that's why people visit the site.
Also, on an unrelated note - I've just noticed I'm on the Featured Bloggers list - how exciting!

Amanda

[2under2blog]

Hi peeky. I've published my blog as a book but it actually began its life as a book, so it was written with that kind of consistency in mind.

However, blogging the chapters provided a useful editing process as I had to really think about who would be reading the chapters, and how best to display the information for the web (sub heads, bullets etc). Doing it chapter by chapter made it seem less of an arduous task.

When I decided to publish the book, I then went through all the posts again, choosing my favourites, editing them and making sure they worked for the book. A lot of the web moderations I applied were useful in book format too.

Now I've arranged a meeting with a PR agent (who, handily, wants to interview me for a magazine feature about raising two under two) who will help me get the book out there. It's absolutely correct that promotion is the biggest hill to climb.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[2under2blog]

p.s. COngrats on being featured!