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Kate Lee is a 27-year-old assistant at International Creative Management in Manhattan who pals around with some New York bloggers. The New Yorker's Ink column this week also credits her with pushing the new trend towards books by bloggers.
Two years from now—give or take—Elizabeth Spiers, the founding editor of the gossip Web sites Gawker and The Kicker, will publish her first novel. Around the same time, Glenn Reynolds, who writes the political Web log Instapundit, will also have a book in stores. So, too, may writers from the blogs Hit & Run, The Black Table, Dong Resin, Zulkey, Low Culture, Lindsayism, Megnut, Maud Newton, MemeFirst, Old Hag, PressThink, I Keep a Diary, Buzz Machine, Engadget, and Eurotrash. Suddenly, books by bloggers will be a trend, a cultural phenomenon...Lee spends the majority of her workday in the manner of any agent-to-be: reading manuscripts from the slush pile, vetting contracts, negotiating rights, checking her boss’s voice mail. But she spends approximately an hour each day reading blogs. She scans a dozen first thing in the morning and keeps tabs on another twenty-seven throughout the day, though any of these may lead her to countless others. Reading blogs on company time is hardly unheard of, but Lee does not so much read as prospect, sifting through sloppy thinking, bad grammar, and blind self-indulgence for moments of actual good writing. It’s too soon to say how this will pay off, but she represents writers from the first six blogs listed above and is in talks with writers from the rest.
Also: James Surowiecki writes about Google bombing.
...and as your award for right-on cynicism, please pick up as your door prize "The Internet Yellow Pages" (3 volumes, hardbound).
Posted by: M. Turmon at May 24, 2004 11:33 AMOnly four short years ago, electronic publishing and "e-books" were presented as a threat to traditional publishers but with few exceptions net publishers like Alibris, et al, are, in the long run, just another form of vanity publishing. Same thing with the vast majority of bloggers. You have to wade through a lot of mud and slop to find just one diamond.
Posted by: Rodger Jacobs at May 24, 2004 12:18 PMEverybody wants to read that which they already want to believe. "Publishing" merely commodifies belief.
Posted by: joseph at May 24, 2004 12:26 PMYou're on the nose there, Joseph. Check out the links on any blogger page and what you'll find, quite naturally, are links to other like-minded - politically, philosophically, etc. - bloggers. Little bubbles of like-minded folk in the blogosphere.
Posted by: Rodger Jacobs at May 24, 2004 01:42 PMAlso: James Surowiecki writes about Google bombing.
Several suits have been filed over this issue. Geico, owned by Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, filed a high-profile action earlier this month.
Details here:
http://news.com.com/2102-1024_3-5215107.html?tag=st.util.print
Posted by: A Fly on the Wall at May 24, 2004 10:00 PMCheck out the links on any blogger page and what you'll find, quite naturally, are links to other like-minded - politically, philosophically, etc. - bloggers.
Some blogs yes and some blogs no. I visit quite a few where the blog links are all over the map.
Posted by: A Fly on the Wall at May 24, 2004 10:03 PMLike this one?
Posted by: Kevin Roderick at May 24, 2004 11:40 PMThis trend may have arrived a little late for most of the war-blogorrhea set, now that events in Iraq are tearing their credibility to shreds.
Of course, who knows? What's next? "Little Green Footballs -- The Movie"?
Posted by: Tim McGarry at May 25, 2004 12:40 PM
of LA Observed
This is the same exact thing we saw in the late 90's when every 'zine creator suddenly got a book contract and almost as quickly got to see their labor holding down the remainder table. There's something almost cruel about the publishing industry's trend hopping and lack of attention span. No doubt many bloggers are good, even great, writers but if ICM is packaging them as the vanguard of the NEXT BIG THING then I don't hold much hope for the longevity of their books. By the time a two-year publishing cycle comes around blogging will be as mundane as voice mail.
Posted by: Mr. Ricey at May 24, 2004 11:03 AM