Do blogs make good books?

Let go of your mouse, step away from your laptop. The publishing world has recently discovered this new-fangled thing called the internet, and a flurry of web-to-print publications are making it possible for you to read popular blogs and websites offline, in the deeply old-skool form of books. With the music industry’s near-fatal clash with the web casting an ominous shadow, publishers are determined not to make the same mistakes. They’re plugging into the potential of the web in a spirit of inventiveness and enthusiasm - none more so than web-to-print publisher The Friday Project, whose new imprint Friday Fiction will launch in June 2007 with the publication of Caroline Smailes’ debut novel In Search of Adam.

Unlike other web-to-print hits such as Belle du Jour (a woman writing about sex) and Girl with a One Track Mind (a woman writing about sex), In Search of Adam is not about sex (at least, not entirely), although it is definitely written by a woman. It’s also not strictly a blog, but a book promoted online. Smailes set up a blog to advertise her book to potential readers, agents and publishers. “She used the web to really showcase her work,” says Clare Christian, publishing director at The Friday Project. “Her book is quite a Friday Project book, in that we try and publish books that perhaps other publishers wouldn’t be willing to take a risk on. I love her use of layout and typeface to create impact and drama within a text.”

Dipping at random into Smailes’ blog produces such dubious gems as “I just ate an entire Chocolate Orange” and “I did watch X Factor last night”, all in her distinctive mix of fonts. Elsewhere, there’s the opportunity to trace the writer’s journey from unpublished scribbler to professional author. A September posting reads, “Last night I received an email from a publisher... OMG OMG OMG.” It’s cute, it’s endearing, it’s deeply trivial - in contrast to the book itself, a rather dark exploration of abuse, suicide and dysfunctional relationships.

All of which suggests that blogs don’t always give an accurate impression of the books lurking within them. Mimi Foe, author of popular ‘stripper blog’ Mimi in New York, found to her cost that when it comes to blogs, publishers are sometimes so busy seeing dollar signs and hearing the kerching of the cash register that they forget to read what’s in front of them. Her blog is a darkly inventive slice of urban melancholia, playing with ideas about identity and sex. Yet the book, to be released in May 2007, is being marketed as a frothy, pastel-hued romp entitled Clear Plastic Heels. Foe is unhappy with the end result, and has taken to the web once more to voice her complaints, on her blog and on a specially-created MySpace page.

But these kind of spats won’t be enough to dispel the appeal of the web for publishers, agents and writers. Literary agent David Godwin, whose client list includes Booker Prize winner Kirin Desai, remains a fan of web-to-print publishing and The Friday Project in particular: “They’re doing something really different. We’ve been working with them and they’ve been really imaginative, helpful and professional.” The book he’s referring to is Out of the Tunnel, by 7 July survivor Rachel North, represented by Godwin and due to be published by The Friday Project later in the year. Her blog deals with the aftermath of her experience, taking in politics, cooking and pole dancing along the way. Godwin is unconcerned whether the books he represents started online or off: “I don’t think it matters either way. Some books are good, most are terrible, and I’m interested in the good ones. Writers are writers.”

But the way we read blogs is very different from the way we read books. Blogs are for those snatched five minute breaks at work, when your boss can’t see your screen and mistakes your look of rapt attention to the latest confessional posting for a deep interest in Powerpoint. You can comment on blogs, argue with them, read them in two minutes and go back to whatever else it was you were doing. In short, we ask less of blogs than of books. Clare Christian agrees that the skills required to write a novel are dramatically different from those required to maintain a blog: “It’s like the difference between doing a sprint and a marathon. A blog is continually changing - you can write something on Tuesday and by the end of the week it’s so far down the page no one will read it. There are loads of differences. That’s where hopefully our skill as a publisher comes in. We can say, ‘This element of your blog is brilliant, let’s work on that.’” Examples of this kind of process include a book by Tom Reynolds, ambulance-driving author of the blog Random Acts of Reality. Christian explains, “He’s been running it for three years and his writing is amazing. But rather than just publish the whole thing, we got him to select the best posts.”

It’s easy to draw parallels with the effect of MySpace on the music industry. Just like band websites and MySpace music accounts, blogs have ready-made audiences, and they prove that authors are serious about promoting their work. They provide quick fixes for publishing houses looking for a guaranteed success story. But Clare Christian thinks the real sea-change in the publishing industry has yet to come: “There are definitely parallels in the way that reading devices are being developed just as listening devices were. There will be a point where a really good e-reader is developed and there’ll be a huge shift in the industry. But at the moment, things like MySpace and Youtube are good for audiovisual stuff rather than print stuff.” In the future, it’s conceivable that blogs-into-books could eventually edge out literary agents, with the internet replacing their traditional middle man role (and without the 15 per cent fee). Godwin disagrees, arguing that the internet is creating more, not fewer, opportunities for enterprising agents: “I think it’s a fantastic opportunity. I’m looking into, at some stage, putting novels out digitally before I sell them and getting interest that way. Organising the career of a writer will become more important. I think agents will become more like record labels, they’ll pick up things that are already out there and the agent’s role will become more not less important.”

Like any new imprint, Friday Fiction will sink or swim according to the popularity of the books they put out, rather than any specific market for books based on blogs. But whatever happens in the future, it looks like the once-traditional method of writing a book in a freezing Parisian garrett, dying of consumption and having your book acclaimed posthumously as a masterpiece has been replaced by URLs and a knack for self-promotion. If only James Joyce had had a website! Oh hang on, he does now.