I took a great teleseminar this evening from NSA member Tom Antion. He interviewed Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff on the topic From Blog to Book

Patsi & Denise are blogging businesswomen found here . Check out their website. You’ll find a great lists of clients and projects of people who are engaged in turning their blogs into books.

They consult on:

• The Blog Squad – How to maximize marketing strategy
• Blog Crisis Prevention Program
• Build a Better Blog – Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your Business using a blog
• Blog to Book Project – they’ll guide you for $199 – $699 to deliver a book

The tele-class was on the last topic and they promised that in their tele-class we will learn:

=> How to set up an inexpensive blog in a matter of minutes . . .blogs are cheap and powerful

=> How to use your blog to help you write your book automatically…in only a few minutes a day you will knock out what previously looked like an enormous undertaking.

=> How to use your blog to organize your entire project . . . no need to agonize over chapters and such.

=> How to have your blog visitors add content to your book. . .1000 heads are better than one.

=> How to pre-promote your upcoming book in your blog . . . you can have people lined up to buy even before your book is done

and much, much more

Here’s what I heard:

Technology

They use TYPEPAD as their blogging tool – the features are flexible for business vs. blogging as a private journal. Costs $5-15/month. $150 year premium fee. They can create multiple blogs to target different niches

Background – Why Blog:

Search engines love blogs.
Double and triple blogs to your static web site.
Focus blog on specific niche or business results in keyword rich content.
200-300 word posts are optimum.
Search engines index content over & over vs. static web sites that won’t be spidered as much.
Installing on your web site requires technical skills as well.
Typepad is different URL from your static site so you have a ‘second fishing pole in the water’.
Blogger is free but does not make linking as easy – Typepad is better, more intuitive.

Blogs and Books:

Typing directly into blog easy way to compose.
Enter content as it occurs to you for ½ hr each morning, no particular order, whatever inspires you each day.
They pick off morsels and drop into an e-zine via a Word document.
Put information together in one place and people will pay for it.
Repurpose content to make money.

To start:

Do you like to write? If so,
Determine what your purpose is – who is your audience?
Start with a 30-day free account on typepad.

Turning a blog into a book:

New word: Blook = Blog-as-Book
Blooker Prize (like the UK’s Booker Prize) from Lulu.

Phenomena took off 6-8 months ago. Promote your book on your own web site.

Examples:

[1] Tom Evslin, www.hackoff.com – serialized the book on his blog, then podcast, then fictionalized web site to support book – book out even out yet. Thousands subscribe to get daily updates. Book for pre-order on amazon.com will be self-published.

[2] Robert Scobel & Shell Israel Naked Conversations. He wrote and created book as he went along on his blog. Wrote a chapter at a time and got feedback.

Commenting: Blogs allow comments (unlike website). Get permission to use Comments you’ll get from blog postings – most people flattered. Instant dialog. Ask readers for ideas and ask them for their experiences. They’ll almost write the book for you!

Example: Restaurant blog ran a contest during the Oscar’s – anyone with a clean sweep gets free entrée. Got lots of comments.

Blooks work in any niche market. eBook for any subject. People write on all kinds of subjects: Dating, Travel Agency, Photography.

Post to your blog with a partner! Collaborate.

Professionals with books generate more leads, can charge higher fees for speaking engagements.

Blogs automate the organization of your ideas. Instant content management system. Shorter postings help improve your writing – makes you to the point . Good blogging etiquette is linking to your source, good research discipline. People you link to help start word-of-mouth marketing. Build fans and prospects for your finished product. Building a platform that is public.

Can write when you are out-of-town or traveling. You can post-date entries to post when the date hits.

Issue: Why put all your content out for the public – no-one will buy my book!

Phooey! Putting it into blog does not impact sales at all. Does not matter what you’ve put out there on blog, in eCourse or sample chapters people want to see the physical book! Signed and on their shelf! The whole world is not digital. People like to read in an easy chair.

Five Features of a Blog that make it a good tool to write a book:

[1] Search engines love keyword rich content of blogs. Be sure to put keywords in the posting title. Look for ways to optimize a blog post. Repeat the key word through the blog post.
[2] Categories and Archives is an instant content management system for your post – it becomes a natural outline system.
[3] Comments enable a conversation – feedback from readers becomes part of the book.
[4] Readers can subscribe in a number of ways to get subscription via Feedblitz or RSS.
[5] Trackback and Permalinks enable you and people who read your blog to tie back to other bloggers you are writing about via ‘pings’ – an advanced strategy.

Directly exporting your blog posts and turn them into a bound book is possible – but problematic.

Blogbinders will print a soft-cover book but this won’t read smoothly.

Can’t just export your blog posts and have it read smoothly. No more than you could bind together a bunch of Word docs.

Suggestion: Print out blog posts and pile on floor to see what you’re missing. Put it in the right order. See what’s missing, tighten it up, do your transitions. Professional editor and designer can be found on craigslist, eLance etc. You need another pair of eyes to spot errors. Add Forward, Table of Content, Appendix, Index, etc.

Start with eBook just cut and paste into right order. Then move to printed book. It can stimulate a traditional book from an author who has taken this imitative.

Lightening Source will turn your text from the blog or any other files into an eBook readable on Palm and distribute on Amazon etc.

Dan Poynter has tips on book publishing
John Kremer publishes ‘1001 Ways to Market Your Books’

How to drive traffic to your blog

Write good quality content on a regular basis.
Create a Newsletter / eZine to drive people to your blog
PR Web free PR site – post press release on your blog: Submit your blog to 150+ blog specific directories
Comment on other blogs and link back to yours.
Contribute to the conversation in the blogospehere – at the very least the owner will check out your links and discover something new.
Have a name and address opt-in section
Consider Google Adsense to make money on your blog
Article Directories: Take blog post and expand to 1,000 word article and post to 150+ article directories, Examples:

http://ezinearticles.com/
http://www.articlesubmissions.com/
http://www.opportunityupdate.com/doorwaytosubmit.html

There must be a central directory of these submission sites – do you know one? Please leave a comment below if you do!

Rich Brooks is web designer has web site optimization and marketing types with lots of tips on tagging and other background ways to drive traffic.

Finally:

Do a Blook Tour: A virtual book tour on blogs. Getting publicity is difficult, so bloggers go from blog to blog talking about their book! You can do 20 blogs in one day since there’s no travel.

It was a great seminar – thanks Patsi, Denise and Tom!