So Close: from Blog to Book

by Michelle on May 21st, 2007

A publisher’s take on a trend in the world of books.

Where do books come from? Traditionally publishers find them pressed into their hands at book fairs, standing out in slush piles or singled out by the words of a trusted contact; writers can expand them from well-received magazine articles, thrash out their outlines over boozy lunches or piece them together in private, only showing them when they are almost fully formed.

Now there’s a new way to make and find books. It’s private but exposed, it’s author-centric but communal, it’s reader-friendly but unrestrained – it’s blogging. Publishers have been nervous about what effect the internet will have on book publishing, but, for now, instead of books dying out publishers are finding books online. Internationally, publishers are turning blogs into physical books, mainly memoir-style stories like Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour and Baghdad Burning by Riverbend.

In September 2006, Oshun Books published the first South African book adapted from a blog, Tertia Albertyn’s So Close. It started when a bookseller at the launch of another Oshun book gave me a URL – www.tertia.org – written on a scrap of paper. I visited the site and knew that Tertia was a blogger who could become an author. First of all, her story was topical and compelling, but importantly, she is a very good blogger:

she blogs every day
she’s got the right tone: very funny and achingly honest
she sticks to her topic and has lots of good advice to give, she’s not just rambling
she chooses issues to blog about that get her readers really excited and actively encourages debate (I’ve seen some posts with over 200 ‘comments’ from readers)
she’s community oriented, supporting and acknowledging readers in her online network
she’s tech-savvy and uses sites like Flickr and YouTube to post photos and videos to illustrate what she’s writing about as well as lots of other sneaky bloggy things (don’t ask me!)

In fact, Tertia’s blog is continually rated as one of the top blogs in the country, with at least 3000 unique visitors a day. Tertia’s very active blog convinced me that she had the voice and content that spoke to her target market. I also knew that she’d already been through a rigorous ‘community edit’.

A successful blog can be a wonderful writing tool for the author with nerves of steel (and a skin of rhino hide) in that it offers sustained manuscript development (although the blogger may not be thinking of it that way at the time, and it’s arguably best if he doesn’t). Interaction with readers is constantly informing the blogger, whether it’s through questions they ask, comments they enjoy or posts they ignore.

The blogging process naturally incorporates something which most publishers can’t do on most books – extremely detailed and almost instantaneously implemented market research. A publisher who can find a blogger who is highly rated and supported has found themselves an author who can be relevant, engaging and can rise above the pack. From a marketing perspective, a blogger has a large community of readers who already support the author and her writing, and who will buy the book and spread the word once she is published.

I knew all these things, but it still didn’t answer the big question: If all this content was already online, why would people buy it as a book? These are some potential answers:

blogs run ‘backwards’ (ie. the top post is the most recent). A book puts the story chronologically.
blogs break the story into bits and sometimes even files them away – a book puts everything in one package with everything visible and at your fingertips.
blogs work in real time and often without reflection. Bits of the story are left out and other parts go on and on… A book puts in back story, fills in the gaps and edits overwriting – it offers a complete and compact story.
a book has a physical presence in the world – a potential reader can see it in a shop window while they’re in the mall and buy it, they can pick it up on a friend’s coffee table, they can keep it on their bedside table, they can give it to their sister as a gift, they can keep it to treasure and reread. There’s still an ineffable something in that physicality that makes people want books (even if they have already read it all before).
many South Africans still don’t feel comfortable reading long texts online, and most South Africans never read online at all. 66% of those South Africans who do have access to the internet have it at work, and will do very little personal reading there. Blogs aren’t always easy to find, and a person who doesn’t spend a lot of time ‘surfing’ would find it easier to get the book.

The fact that So Close the book was developed from So Close the blog did affect the editorial and production processes to some extent. There was the potential of a very strong narrative thread (with a wonderful happy ending) and existing blog entries were edited around that, with some back story filled in and lots of stuff cut. Some blog entries were cut down and included as informative sidebars, so as not to impede the narrative. We also posted pictures into the narrative (rather than having a photo section), like a blogger would do on their site. Still, it was pretty much like making any other book.

But the online environment did have a significant impact on marketing. As the physical book came up for release Tertia talked about it online, and the news spread by ‘word-of-mouse’ and her community noting the release on their own blogs. Tertia also belongs to a ‘blog book tour’ where writers review each other’s books – cleverly, the more links you have to your book and blog, the higher it rates on search engines and the easier it is to find online. So Close was shortlisted for the international 2007 Lulu Blooker Award, one of five titles chosen from over 100 throughout the world, and this and the blog’s strong online presence convinced The Friday Project to take it on for publication in the UK. Needless to say, international awards and book deals are not things that usually come easily for local titles. It was interesting to see that the marketing drove both ways: the number of South African visitors to Tertia’s blog increased after we released the book and early in 2007 she won the award for Best SA Blog, in part because of how the book raised her profile.

Publishers have been very interested in the marketing opportunities for traditional books online (it is easier than developing a sustainable business model that will work in a digital environment). Marketing initiatives range from the rather mundane; viral e-mail campaigns and author podcasts to the scattershot; book trailers on MySpace and bookstores in Second Life. The A Million Penguins fiction project was a particularly elaborate and effective campaign proclaiming Penguin’s willingness to give this digital thing a try (honestly, you thought there was someone at Penguin who actually thought that would work?!)

Ultimately, as always, the success of So Close comes down to the fact that when you are publishing books there is no substitute for good, relevant content. Tertia is a very engaging and funny writer and she includes a lot of solid information in her story. So Close got a slot on Carte Blanche because the subject matter was topical and a memoir about infertility hadn’t been published in South Africa before. A good writer with a good story is what makes So Close a good blog and also what makes it a good book.

Perhaps the nicest thing about books from blogs is that the reader’s “Neverending Story” fantasies can come true. At the end of Tertia’s book we put a line: “Want to see what Tertia, Marko, Adam and Kate are up to now? Visit: www.tertia.org”.

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