From Blog to Book -- can it happen?

It's online; it's published. There's no reason for an agent to take the time to try and sell something that's available for free, neither is there a reason for an editor to buy something which has already been circulated for free.

A few pages or a chapter is fine, but putting the whole book on line (especially if there are cached versions that will stay around long after you've removed it yourself) isn't going to do you any favors.

Pauly said:

If you're just guessing... well, I've heard my share of guesses.

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Hey, welcome to AW.

Great entrance!

Pauly said:

After rejections from a hundred agents, many more revisions, and full confidence that my book will be published,

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Just curious, why do you have full confidence it will be published? You've been rejected by agents "hundreds" of times by your own admission and that is the crowd you have to impress and get on board with your project.

Facebook and LinkedIn friends are great, but it is the same as saying "my friends and family love my book!" In other words, it means nothing. (Though I am sure it feels good to hear those things!)

To answer the question, no, an agent or editor will not pick up a book that has been published for free on the internet.

It sounds like you should be working on your next project. Good luck with it!

I don't know the legal ramifications and whatnot, but you could leave sample chapters up and self-publish as an e-book. Hopefully you could ask the crowd who already loves it to mention it to their friends.

I'm not sure what your goals are, but there are *some* self-published authors who do all right, and if you have a platform going and traditional's looking bleak...it's something to think about, anyway.

Don't think I'm picking on you, but I need to point a couple of things out here:

Pauly said:

To Lucy: I'm confident because the book is good and has solid audience, but it hasn't been done before.

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^^^ This isn't very likely. Everything has pretty much been done before. There are new spins and new twists, but after a few thousand years of storytelling, it's a safe bet your topic has been covered.

Pauly said:

Many agents liked it, thought the writing was good, and the story, too. But said they felt they weren't the right agent for it.

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This is a form response. It's a polite "no", and has no bearing beyond the fact that it's a rejection.

Blogs do get picked up and turned into books: but they usually only use the blog as a starting point, and a lot of new material is written for the book.

Further, it's usually the really successful, active blogs with lots of followers and good discussions which are picked up. If yours isn't getting a lot of hits (tens of thousands a month) and a lot of new visitors, then that won't be enough to help you.

Tucker Max.

Two books from his site, where all the stories in both books are posted online for free.

First book(I hope they serve beer in hell) was already made into a movie(and a hilarious one).

Cyia said:

This isn't very likely. Everything has pretty much been done before. There are new spins and new twists, but after a few thousand years of storytelling, it's a safe bet your topic has been covered.

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I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you. New concepts in science lead to new concepts in science fiction.

And while I can't say I'm sure it's never been done before, I've never seen anything like tucker max's books either.

Not sure where you're seeing the snark here Pauly. The only one I see being even remotely so is you and your attitude towards 23 yearold publishing professionals.

Yes some people said you had received form rejections because all you said initially was that they said they weren't the right agent for it. That is a pretty standard line in form rejections. You didn't mention that you had page long rejections etc. The fewer details you share, the more likely we will draw false conclusions. And someone saying that there are no new stories out there also isn't being snarky. It's pretty much true. That doesn't mean there can't be a fresh original approach, and exciting new work etc.

What I am seeing is people answering your initial question as well as they can, with the information you've given them.

Seeing as you are putting up part of your work online (and so aren't trying to keep it a secret until publication), why don't you tell us about the story you are trying to sell so that we stop jumping to conclusions and can offer our help specific to your needs?

I don't know how everyone avoided duplicating the contents, but Julie and Julia was a blog-to-book-to-movie blockbuster success.

A guy named Dana Vachon was an investment banker who kept a snarky blog that was picked up by an agent who got him a $650,000 advance for his debut novel -- unwritten at the time of the deal.

Yes, but that's different from what Pauly is trying to do. He's already written a book of some kind and wants to put it up online bit by bit.

Most blog to books were blogs first, books second. They suited the medium specifically, and they had huge followings which sparked the interest of trade publishers. Blogs aren't just a place to post stuff, they have a their own kind of relationship with readers, it's more of a conversation, than simply going "Hey here's something I wrote, enjoy." The Julie Powell book for example was her sharing her day by day journey. What was compelling was that you were experiencing her life real time. She wasn't writing a blog post saying, "Once I tried this experiment, and this is what happened." She was saying, "Okay, here we go, let's see how this goes!" Blogs aren't also just about the writing, but the personality behind the writing.

If Pauly wants to attempt to do the getting lots of fans first, publisher second, he should probably self epublish the book, not just post it on a blog. As far as I know, I know of no blogs where people posted chapters of their book and got subsequent deals.

But again, if he does self epublish, it's a risk, because if he doesn't wind up getting the needed hits, he's shot himself in the foot. No publisher will take on a self published book that failed.

Anyway, all this is moot as he has decided not to do the blog thing anyway and continue to pursue trade publishing.

Miss Plum said:

I don't know how everyone avoided duplicating the contents, but Julie and Julia was a blog-to-book-to-movie blockbuster success.

A guy named Dana Vachon was an investment banker who kept a snarky blog that was picked up by an agent who got him a $650,000 advance for his debut novel -- unwritten at the time of the deal.

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Miss Plum, this isn't really directed at you, though I'm quoting you. This kind of thinking is lethal. I'm sorry, but it just is.

If you are hoping these one-off deals can be duplicated, you're not only going to be disappointed, you're criminally stupid.

I know writers believe *they* will be the ones to change things, to make a splash, to break some barrier.

But it's not you.

The counter to this is, "Well it was somebody!" And then usually they will quote a myth about the Harry Potter dynasty. And they're right - but guess what. THAT WASN'T YOU EITHER.

Seriously, just play by the rules. The odds of success are much, much better.

Toothpaste said:

Most blog to books were blogs first, books second.

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Exactly. There's a couple of blogs I follow that have recently resulted in book deals. One is "This is Not the Six Word Novel", which is run by a British bookseller. The woman is very funny and shares anecdotes about strange things people have asked in the shop where she works. This has led to a book deal for a humorous book about the same.

The other is My Milk Toof, which is run by an artist who started posting adorable photos/stories for young children and now has a children's book coming out from Chronicle.

Actually, it's three blogs I follow.

Ally from Hyperbole and a Half also has a book deal based on her stories from her blog.

All have added TONS of new material for the deals in question.

CaoPaux said:

Without understanding how exceptional such occurrences are (e.g., he was an established freelance/non-fiction author before he tried his hand at fiction), folks will only hear "it's possible" without hearing "you have a better chance of winning the lottery".

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To have a writing career like Scalzi, follow these simple steps.

Each of these steps is actually important to having a career like mine; each step informs the steps after it. Skip a step and suddenly your career isn’t like mine anymore; it’s something else entirely, and the map I used to get where I am is no longer useful to you.

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Lucy, FWIW, I agree 100%. I was just answering a question. Has this ever happened? Yes, twice -- among the million or so blogs out there.

btw, This is recorded on PM today:

Twenty-something artist and blogger Adam Ellis's BOOKS OF ADAM, based on the blog of the same name, a collection of humorous coming-of-age stories paired with Adam's signature black and white illustrations; including stories about the ups and downs of moving to a new city, the trials of dating, and an attempted juice fast, to Pippa White at Grand Central, at auction, by Monika Verma at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency

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I'm not trying to be smart. These crazy one-offs have a way of getting in your face when you're trying to push a little reality.

On a somewhat related note is the case of Trisha Ventker, an iUniverse author who just successfully pitched film rights to her self-published book to Paula Wagner (Tom Cruise's producer and one of the most powerful in Hollywood for those who don't keep up on that sort of thing). I really wonder how many authors are going to try that path to success now. <shakes head>

The OP was asking about a novel, which had been published on a blog however, not a blog which was used as the basis for a book.

Also, it doesn't sound like this blog got much traffic.

Authors ought keep in mind that there are a lot of publishing people on these boards. The spin on responses from them isn't necessarily intended to put writers' interests first.

In recent years there have been a lot of 'exceptions' to publishing's rules. Enough that they aren't even that unusual anymore. Excepting the race to the bottom on prices that many are running, it's a great time to be a writer.

Miselle said:

Authors ought keep in mind that there are a lot of publishing people on these boards. The spin on responses from them isn't necessarily intended to put writers' interests first.

In recent years there have been a lot of 'exceptions' to publishing's rules. Enough that they aren't even that unusual anymore. Excepting the race to the bottom on prices that many are running, it's a great time to be a writer.

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Welcome to AW, Miselle. It seems you have an axe to grind. Do explain further.

Yes, it's possible. It's been done.

If a) someone sees it, and b) falls in love with it, it'll be represented/bought.

Those are two big ifs.

Meanwhile, write your next book.