Blooker Prize Blog

Dirty Minds?

Direct from Random House UK we have two steamy memoirs of women who took control of their faltering love-lives...and blogged about it!

Straight Up and Dirty
by Stephanie Klein -- www.stephaneiklein.com

£12.99 (Ebury Press/Random House UK) Buy it
$24.95 (Regan Books/HarperCollins) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"A thirty-year old divorcee hits rock bottom then hits the town...Bergdorf Blondes meets Desperate Housewives meets The Sexual Life of Catherine M. in a funny, erotic, razor-sharp story of love, marriage, and sex."

Girl with a One Track Mind
by Abby Lee -- girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com

£7.99 (Ebury Press/Random House UK) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"Abby Lee is smart, sassy, and perpetually single. Frustrated with her mediocre love-life, she's now looking for the kind of sex she's always wanted. This is the intimate diary of her extraordinary sexual journey."

Here For Crafty Software

Here are the next three submissions. All have been entered into the same category, yet they cover vastly different material. It looks like this year the judges are again going to have their work cut out for them!

Here For a Good Time: On the Road With Trooper--Canada's Legendary Rock Band
by Ra McGuire -- www.ramcguire.com

$14.95 (Insomniac Press) - Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"Famous for his quick wit and sometimes too-candid stage banter, McGuire has always has a knack for keeping audiences on the edge of their seats. In Here For a Good Time, he reveals the peaks and valleys of his life on the road and the joys and challenges of being a fifty-something rock star at large in the country he knows like the back of his hand."

Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box
by Alex Epstein -- complicationsensue.blogspot.com

$15.00 (Owl Books/Henry Holt) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"Epstein, a veteran TV writer and show creator himself, provides essential knowledge about the entire process of television writing, both for beginners and for professionals who want to go to the next level...Fresh, funny and informed, Crafty TV Writing is the essential guide to writing for and flourishing in the world of television."

Eric Sink on the Business of Software
by Eric Sink -- software.ericsink.com

$24.99 (Apress) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"For developers who want to be coding entrepreneurs and know more about the business side of things...This book collects and expands on articles from Eric's popular weblog...You will find stories of his successes and failures across eight rich years of managing a self-funded software product company."

Small French Monsters

Today begins a new regular feature here at the Blooker blog--a closer look at the blooks that have already been physically submitted to the contest. All quoted text has been taken directly from the books themselves.

Small Is the New Big: and 183 other riffs, rants, and remarkable business ideas
by Seth Godin -- sethgodin.typepad.com

$25.95 (Portfolio/Penguin) -- Pre-order it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"Collected here for the first time are eight years of his very best blog posts, magazine columns, and e-books. On literally every page, Small Is the New Big offers ideas and stories that can change how your work, what you buy, and how you see the world."

Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language From the South of France
by Kristin Espinasse - french-word-a-day.typepad.com

$18.00 (Touchstone/Simon &Schuster) -- Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"A heart-winning collection from an American woman raising two very French children with her French husband in Provence, carrying on a lifelong love affair with the language."

Monster Island: A Zombie Novel
by David Wellington - www.thirteenbullets.com

$13.95 (Thunder's Mouth Press/Avalon) - Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

"In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers comes in search of desperately needed medicine, with a former UN weapons inspector as their local guide. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than undeath."

Listing entries

I've just changed the format of this blog slightly by adding a column on the right to list the entries. We did this for the 2006 Blooker, but, to be honest, there was a slight problem--we listed the blooks as they were entered via the website, and many of them were never physically submitted! If you don't send in your blook, it's not eligible for the Blooker that year. It's a simple as that. (That's why Jessica Cutler's Washingtonienne is on the list again--she never sent it in last year, and was therefore able to re-enter it.)

Despite this potential point of confusion, I will still be listing all the blooks entered through the site. (What can I say? It makes an otherwise static blog a bit more dynamic.) However, if any of these entries fail to be submitted by the January 15 postmark deadline, I'm taking them down. Likewise, if it becomes apparent that an entry is ineligible for the Blooker (e.g. it is not based on online content, or it is not printed in English), it will be removed from the list. Make sense?

Something new for the 2007 Blooker will be posts about the legitimate entries as they get physically submitted. Seven have already come in, and I will be blogging about them in a bit more detail very soon.

Voices from BlogHer

As promised, here are two interviews from BlogHer that will appear in the forthcoming installment of the Lulu Radio podcast.

First up, Team BlogHer member Charlotte (who is also my podcasting partner-in-crime) interviewed Susie Bright. Susie (right) is an author, editor, blogger, and "sexpert," and she was one of our favorite people at the event. The interview focuses on writing and publishing, but be warned--it also contains mild cursing, references to illicit drugs, and a healthy dose of Paris Hilton bashing. (Also, please forgive the sounds of San Jose traffic in the background!)
Download SusieBright.mp3 (6016.1K)

Next is my interview with Heather Powazek Champ (left), photographer, blogger, and co-editor of JPG Magazine. We discussed the motivations behind the quarterly photography magazine and how the Internet has helped artists of all kinds successfully self-publish. It was great finally getting to meet Heather, and I really appreciate the time she took out of a busy convention to talk to me.
Download HeatherChamp.mp3 (9003.9K)

BlogHer and Blooker and bears, oh my!

Jason here, and I think I'm finally recovered from my amazing weekend at BlogHer 2006 in cool, breezy, non-humid San Jose, CA. Lulu.com was one of the event sponsors and an exhibitor, and we were there not only to promote Lulu but the Blooker as well. We were a bit overwhelmed by amount of positive response we got from the convention attendees, but I suppose it really shouldn't be that surprising that Lulu appeals to bloggers. After all, they are people who are proactive, tech-savvy, and, most importantly, they have something to say. They embrace alternative media and happily subvert the long-held traditions of publishing and journalism. Plus, many already have a built in audience for their blook, which makes marketing (which is one of the biggest challenges of self-publishing) significantly easier.

 

One of the most frequently asked questions at the Lulu booth (seen here with Charlotte and Katie, the other 2/3 of Team BlogHer) was "How can I turn my blog into a book?"

Well, there is, of course, no single answer. As Karen Rani recently pointed out in the BlogHer blog, there are quite a few options out there. Admittedly, I'm a little biased toward the hands-off Lulu model, but the complete control over blook format and design that Lulu allows does mean that the author has to do most of the work. In upcoming posts, I will examine the features of many of the alternate blog-to-book services to help you make an informed decision of how best to blookify your blog.

So, where was I? Ah yes, BlogHer. We met a lot of really cool people--too many to list them all. We hung out with the incomparable Susie Bright and our friends (and fellow North Carolinians) from Blog ads. I got to interview Heather Powazek Champ, community director at Flickr and co-editor of JPG Magazine, for Lulu Radio, the official podcast of Lulu.com. (I'll post that here once I get a chance to edit it.)

Blooker judge Arianna Huffington was there to give one of the keynote addresses. Unfortunately, since I was in the booth all day, I didn't get a chance to meet her. In fact, this is about a close to her as I was able to get!(She's sitting at the far end of the hall to the left of the screen.)

All in all, it was awesome to be around such a dynamic and creative group of people, and I hope that each and everyone one of them enters the Blooker!

(Special thanks to Maria Benet of the Alembic blog for permission to post this photo!)