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There is an interesting phenomenon happening of popular blogs getting transferred into books. On first look it seems like a fairly cost effective idea for the publisher, there is a community already interested in the book that should be more interested in purchasing the content.
If I look at the kind of blog-to-books that are out there, they span a lot of different interest groups;
1. Chocolate and Zuchinne (I bought two copies of this)- is a recipe book following on from Clothilde’s blog detailing her cooking habits. I’d say this was probably pretty successful because they also commissioned a further volume about food in Paris. Amazon.com ranking 2.459.073 & 17.773
2. web analytics an hour a day from Avinash Kaushik. This I pretty much the pre-eminent book/blog when it comes to understanding what’s going on with your website. Amazon.com ranking 1,064
3. Stuff white people like came out of nowhere and became a hit very quickly (I think the first post was January 2008, and the book was out in 2008) they also claim to have over 56 million “hits” on the website (whatever they may be) Amazon.com ranking 1,969
4. Postsecret comes out with a few postcards every week from people who tell their secrets in this anonymous format. They’ve got 4 books out, amovie made about them and an Amazon.com ranking 1,831
5. Postcards from your momma another fairly new blog (I think from some people associated with Gawker media) all about the zany ways moms use new communication methods and how sweet they are. (not yet published)
6. college humour has a guide to college, but despit having 4 million monthly unique users it doesn’t do so great in the sales 177,705
However (and this is something my mom said to me) why bother to buy a book when you can read it online for free. This is a good question. There is the issue that some people will always want something tangible in their hands, and having access to it on a website is insufficient. In the future this feeling may disappear, but its doubtful.
Apparently you are looking at about 13 sales/day for a rank of 1,000, and our of the books that are available on Amazon these are not bad rankings (actually I’m quite surprised that these rank so high). Also if you look at these there is a tendency to have a focus on coffee table ish, “funny” blogs turned into books. Though the one which translate least well from the net I would think is College Humour with its focus on videos and this is mirrored in its sales rankings.
Maybe all of these diversionary books are so popular at the moment is because of the economic climate, and people need some light respite. Either way this blog is available for publishing (hardcover only, lots of photos please, I have standards)Related articles by Zemanta
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Brendan McNulty 