Has anyone taken their blog and sold it as book format? If so, can you share with us how you did that? Also, do you have a business plan for your blog?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I DID turn my blog into three books, essay collections that I self-published in 2008 (Running with Stilettos: Living a Balanced Life in Dangerous Shoes); 2009 (Heck on Heels: Still Balancing on Shoes, Love & Chocolate!); and 2011 (Fabulous in Flats: Putting my best foot forward!).
I've had absolutely no marketing plan whatsoever other than to enter the books in contests and win a few awards, and hope that they would catch fire on their own. My life over the past few years has been a revolving door of family emergencies, and so that fact that these words ever saw print on a page has been something of a miracle! I'm very glad I forged ahead and published them on my own, but there are a million details you don't think of when you first set out to do this. My first piece of advice would be to get thyself to a bookstore and start looking at books published by traditional presses, with an eye on what you like in terms of type face, size, page design, line spacing, cover design, cover content, right down to the format for the Table of Contents. You need to have a plan for how you want your books to look BEFORE you ship them to a self-publisher, otherwise it can be expensive to make those kinds of changes.
It looks like Blurb only works with 4 specific blog formats, which doesn't help me; however, it looks like a simple process for other bloggers. Thanks for the tip!
I haven't tried it, but the idea has been in the back of my mind since I did an art catalog on Blurb.com. I noticed that they had a link to "Blog Books". At the time, I just filed that little tidbit away, but here is the link to the (limited) info they have there. I would be willing to bet there is a great deal more to learn from the Blurb forums. Good luck!
Yes, as a matter of fact, I DID turn my blog into three books, essay collections that I self-published in 2008 (Running with Stilettos: Living a Balanced Life in Dangerous Shoes); 2009 (Heck on Heels: Still Balancing on Shoes, Love & Chocolate!); and 2011 (Fabulous in Flats: Putting my best foot forward!).
I've had absolutely no marketing plan whatsoever other than to enter the books in contests and win a few awards, and hope that they would catch fire on their own. My life over the past few years has been a revolving door of family emergencies, and so that fact that these words ever saw print on a page has been something of a miracle! I'm very glad I forged ahead and published them on my own, but there are a million details you don't think of when you first set out to do this. My first piece of advice would be to get thyself to a bookstore and start looking at books published by traditional presses, with an eye on what you like in terms of type face, size, page design, line spacing, cover design, cover content, right down to the format for the Table of Contents. You need to have a plan for how you want your books to look BEFORE you ship them to a self-publisher, otherwise it can be expensive to make those kinds of changes.
www.runningwithstilettos.com
LeeAnn,
It looks like Blurb only works with 4 specific blog formats, which doesn't help me; however, it looks like a simple process for other bloggers. Thanks for the tip!
I haven't tried it, but the idea has been in the back of my mind since I did an art catalog on Blurb.com. I noticed that they had a link to "Blog Books". At the time, I just filed that little tidbit away, but here is the link to the (limited) info they have there. I would be willing to bet there is a great deal more to learn from the Blurb forums. Good luck!
http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook
VOTE 4 MY BLOG (Soon to be a book!)
at http://bit.ly/ln8bDA then ...
read it at http://bit.ly/eNpJ3X
I'm tryin'!
Free psychotherapy that actually works w/o 12 steps
Hint: it's a blog turned book!
http://bit.ly/kugQV6 or http://on.fb.me/h3tTsy