Blogs and Stories
Twitterature
When HarperCollins reshuffled its imprints in February, one side of the company grew. The It Books imprint, designed to bring hot titles to the publishing house, will launch this fall. One title is the first authorized Twitter book, Twitter Wit, edited by Gawker alum Nick Douglas and due out next fall. Douglas will cull the best tweets from around the Twitterverse, and write an introduction. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone will write a foreword for the book.
Douglas says that he joined Twitter in 2007, and saved all of his favorite tweets since. Over the last two years, he has mined over 7,000 tweets, searching for 140-word gold. And he’s invited the Twitterverse to submit their favorites on TwitterWit.net. Every contributor he selects for Twitter Wit will receive a copy of the book, which his publisher says is a great marketing tool in itself. “These books offer a unique grassroots marketing possibility,” said It Books editor Kate Hamill.
Kate Lee, a literary agent at ICM who specializes in online writers, says that an author’s digital marketing ultimately helps the sale of a book. “Anything an author can do on their own behalf is important, and is absolutely a plus for the publisher—and a plus for the author,” she told The Daily Beast. “They’re building their own fan base.”
Lee says there’s no secret formula for a blog that makes a good book. It ultimately has to be a good, marketable idea. One such book she has recently signed comes from the blog Pets Who Want to Kill Themselves. “There was something human and universal behind how we all treat our pets,” she said of the site. “From the more practical perspective, these pet books sell like mad.”
It seems problematic, of course, to move the content of a free blog into hardcover and expect people to buy it. Andy Selsberg, author of a Tumblr called Dear Old Love who recently signed a deal with Workman Publishers, says selling the book requires a unique mix of new and old material. “When you change the water in an aquarium, you need to leave some of the old water in there so the fish don’t freak out,” he said. “Similarly, from the blog to book, there will be some new stuff, but also familiar things, because that’s what people have grown to like.”
Making books out of Tweets lets Twitterers enjoy, as Nick Douglas puts it, “the old-school joy of the printed word.”
“We don’t think it should be just the best writers and celebrities publishing out there,” Kate Hamill said. “We’re offering the opportunity to tell a story to a lot of different people.” Adds Kate Lee: “I look at blogs, Tumblr, Twitter—whatever you want to call it—as just another platform for finding talent.”
Plus: Check out Book Beast, for more news on hot titles and authors and excerpts from the latest books.
Isabel Wilkinson is a Daily Beast intern who attends Columbia Journalism School. She has written for New York magazine and Women’s Wear Daily.
Edwards Sex Tape Details
Investigative journalist and syndicated columnist Diane Dimond has covered the Michael Jackson story since 1993 when she first broke the news that the King of Pop was under investigation for child molestation. She is author of the book, Be Careful Who You Love—Inside the Michael Jackson Case. She lives in New York with her husband, broadcast journalist Michael Schoen.
The 800 Dangerous Airbus Planes in the Sky
Clive Irving is senior consulting editor at Conde Nast Traveler, specializing in aviation—find his blog, Clive Alive, at CliveAlive.Truth.Travel.
The Best of Paris Fashion Week
Isabel Wilkinson is an assistant editor at The Daily Beast.
'Precious' Sweeps Indie Spirits
Isabel Wilkinson is an assistant editor at The Daily Beast.
Best of Milan Fashion Week
Isabel Wilkinson is an assistant editor at The Daily Beast.
mrudoy
i'll be following you on twitter now... i hope you tweet as well as you write! or are they the same? this is confusing me...
TimBarrus
The gatekeepers are a little afraid of Twitter. They actually find it curious. And they're doing everything they can to figure out how to exploit it and keep the power. The brick walls of publishing must be kept intact. It's very important no new wave of ideas gets in past the castle walls. What they're afraid of with Twitter is that a new idea might scale the gatekeeper walls. With Twitter I am able to bypass them (please note how the agents are the first ones to start tweeting) and this exemplifies how ephemeral they really are TO IDEAS. People who follow me on Twitter jump to my blog where they click into my videos and rants against this incestuous scumbag business that makes the books. What they'd really like to do is set up the system where they can control the voices. This would keep the voices on the same polite page. The real power to Twitter is that it moves the idea along from person to person and it can spread an idea quickly. This makes them shudder in their Manolos. It's like surfing out in the waves and Twitter just moves the current along. Wouldn't it be nice if they could control (control being their specialty since otherwise they're actually quite useless to the process of making a book) all the tides and the waves and the surfboards and find some way to get their greedy little hands on a percentage of whatever cash might wash up onto the literary shore which, of course, they will proclaim they own all the rights to including but not limited to the right to decide what waves can make it to the shore and what waves must stay out to sea unnoticed. Fortunately their power is mainly an illusion. A trick. The wave will find it's way to shore even if they put their little arrogant noses up into the air to ignore it. Twitter treats the waves mainly the same. It doesn't keep a CLASS of wave or people out. This makes the CLASS that has always controlled publishing nervous. Someone with an new idea as to what publishing could be might ride one of those waves right over the brick walls they constantly maintain to keep all the rude, bad people out. I love Twitter. I hope it lasts long enough to batter down some of the gatekeeper castles they make from sand. It's hard to swim in Manolo Blahniks. You end up looking patently absurd. You might even drown. Or worse yet, someone's wild surfboard (the surfers out here with new ideas as to how to make it into the shore) might clunk them on their pretty little heads. Or worse yet, no one will care. There are no lifeguards on this beach. It's always been every man for himself. Or worse yet, some shark might find them interesting. I hear agent meat is quite fat. Or worse yet, no one on the beach misses them. The real cause for alarm with Twitter among this group of sublime if charming idiots is that the current doesn't really recognize them as relevant to the process. You can't keep your castle walls secure, swim, and chew gum at the same time. http://le-too.blogspot.com Tim Barrus, Amsterdam
booksbabz
Ravenous Romance did an awesome Twittererotica contest that I hope they will do again. Readers had to write an erotic romance in 140 characters or less. It was hilarious.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.