lifehacker.com — If you've got a book in you, a blog could be just the stepping stone you need toward your first deal. Lots of readers have asked me how "Lifehacker the book" came about. While there are countless ways to get yourself a book deal, this week I've got a behind-the-scenes look at how this particular weblog transformed into a book.
Jan 10, 2007 View in Crawl 4
zephcJan 11, 2007
[mis-post]
damovisaJan 11, 2007
If you want to turn your blog into a book and aren't exactly expecting a call from a publisher (like FTA), there's a company called Blurb who'll do it.<a class="user" href="http://www.blurb.com">http://www.blurb.com</a>And no, I don't work for them nor do I know anyone who does. I just stumbled across it and thought it was a good idea.
rmszeroJan 11, 2007
Worked for this guy:<a class="user" href="http://www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com/">http://www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com/</a>The blog established the tone and gained him an audience, and then:<a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/Things-Girlfriend-Have-Argued-About/dp/081296666X/sr=8-1/qid=1168476512/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6086266-6782369?ie=UTF8&s=books">http://www.amazon.com/Things-Girlfriend-Have-Argued-About/dp/081296666X/sr=8-1/qid=1168476512/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6086266-6782369?ie=UTF8&s=books</a>There goes the novel.
lcarsdeveloperJan 11, 2007
If you're asking from a legal perspective, then it's just a matter of getting permission from the person who posted the comments or in this case from the next of kin.If you mean from a technical perspective, Copy->Paste will do it :)I don't think anybody would mind in this case though, because you're going to be giving this to her son and I'm sure it's something the whole family would treasure.
cbgalootJan 11, 2007
If your blog is interesting enough to make a book out of, hasn't everyone read it already?<a class="user" href="http://digg.com/politics/Personal_injury_lawyer_on_a_banana_peel">http://digg.com/politics/Personal_injury_lawyer_on_a_banana_peel</a>
kbyersJan 11, 2007
Yea, due to the nature of the blog, I wasn't really worried about the legal issues. Many of the comments are from "guest" or a first name only. I was thinking of copy paste, but has hoping for an automated service that would take all the text, format it, and print/bind it. All the service I have found will do that, but only with the original blog entry, no comments... oh well.
valourJan 11, 2007
As someone who has recently helped edit a book that is scheduled to be published by a large publisher and written by bloggers, I can say for certain that this is a very bad idea. Bloggers make horrible authors for many reasons. They tend to be wordy, non-specific, and often go off on tangents. They use links to Web sites instead of actual references -- and to make matters even worse, they link to blogs as references for facts. If they don't feel like explaining something, they say stupid Slashdot bulls**t like "I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader," or "Google it." They frequently state opinion as fact with zero evidence, use superlatives without quoting definitive studies, and in general are the absolute last people you want to have writing a non-fiction book.