An Idea Whose Time Has Come: A New Forum (Blogging) Inspires Old (Books) by Joshua Kurlantzick

I am still behind in my newspaper reading and just found another article of interest to bloggers and blog readers in the Thursday, February 17, 2005 issue of the Chicago Tribune, section 5, page 12. The Tribune is itself behind. When I checked the selective Newspaper Source from EBSCO to see if the article had been included, I learned that the same article had run in the December 15, 2004 issue of the New York Times, page E1. Newspaper Source provides only a citation and short abstract for the half page article, so you will have to go another source to get the text. It is included in NewsBank’s Chicago Tribune database.

The article tells how a few lucky blog writers have used the popularity of their blogs to convince book publishers to accept books that they have written, in some cases based on the blogs and in other cases on totally different subjects. Some publishers have even approached bloggers with book ideas. Most of these books deal with the war in Iraq or politics or other hot topics, but memoirs and novels have also been contracted. Some six figure advances have been offered.

I suspect there are many bloggers who would appreciate a lucrative book deal. I also suspect that the bloggers who have gotten deals write good sentences and paragraphs, do not confuse readers with little known acronyms, define new terms, and proof their entries before publishing to their blogs. Knowledge that blogging could lead to riches might lead to better writing for blogs. We can all dream.