Blog to Book: Write a Book from Your Blog

Writing a book is a lot of work, but if much of the content is already written on your blog it's much easier. Trust me, if I can write two books in the most hectic year of my life, you can write a book too if that's your goal. Often some of your blog categories will naturally map to chapters, and your blog posts can form the majority of the content.

You can pursue a traditional publisher, either directly or through an agent, or you can self-publish."Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers and Literary Agents" comes highly recommended by many people. A traditional publisher is primarily interested in your "platform," your already built-in audience before the book even gets into stores. Your blog is part of your platform and gives you an edge above non-bloggers.

Also don't expect to get rich using a traditional publisher, although you will gain lot of prestige, credibility and respectability which can eventually translate to lots of money.

You can also self publish, which is the perfectly respectable option; plenty of successful books don't follow the traditional publishing route these days. It's unlikely big brick and mortar stores will carry your book, but it's easy to get Amazon to. Many successful books are self published these days and it's even possible a major publisher will pick up your self published book.

There are several excellent references on self publishing, especially "The Self-Publishing Manual" by Dan Poynter. It's basically the definitive guide for self publishing. You can pay several thousand dollars to have a few hundred or thousand books printed, maybe $2 a book or $5 a book, depending on the size of the book and whether its hardcover or soft-cover. Beware that even successful traditionally published books often only sell 5000 copies, so don't fill your garage with copies of your book!

If cash is tight or if you just not sure how many you can sell, you can use what's called a "Print On Demand" publisher, which will print one book at a time although at a much higher cost per book. Examples include lulu.com and Book Surge, which is owned by Amazon. There are typically setup fees and per book fees and print on demand publishers vary very widely in the services and prices they provide. There are a lot of them, so I'd suggest you use your favorite search engine and check out a bunch of them.

My books are several hundreds of pages long and roughly eight and a half by eleven inches, but a book doesn't have to be that long and that big. It could be four by seven inches and ninety pages, for example. Or even a smaller booklet, maybe three and a half by eight inches and twenty-four pages long like many tips booklets are.

For more info on Tips Booklets, take a look at Paulette Ensign's site Tips Products International and also her blog Booklet Tips From Paulette.

One extremely important thing to keep in mind: promoting your book is your job, no matter how it is published. Even if you have a traditional publisher like I do, you'd better plan on spending time and money promoting your book. Remember as a blogger, your blog is one of your primary book promotion vehicles, and you can also send other bloggers review copies. Some bloggers will no doubt be happy to review a book by a fellow blogger they have a relationship with, especially if you write a great book. With the feedback and experience you get from blogging, you have a much better chance at writing a great book than most first time authors.

Comments

[Paulette Ensign]

Great post, Ted. Remember the easiest way to promote your booklets, books, and other related publications on a larger scale than single copies is to incorporate reference about the products into a conversation you're already having with contacts you've got (i.e. for the speaking and consulting engagements), and reference about bulk sales into mentions of single-copy sales. The corporate contacts may be large-quantity buyers themselves, or can easily and happily introduce you to colleagues or friends of theirs who would be your large-quantity buyers. That means you get an extra (larger)sale out of the deal and lots more promotional value in the process. Keep up the great work, Ted!

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Thanks Paulette.
I've added links to your very helpful sites to the main post as well.