Agents and Publishers Looking Online for Talent
The New York Times ran an article today about Christian Lander and his Blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com. The site takes a humorous approach to listing the types of things white, liberal Americans might like. For example, although the white people he covers have plenty of money, they still love Music Piracy and Free Healthcare.
The site has pretty decent traffic with a reported 1.6 million page views per day. What’s news is that Christian has landed a $300,000 advance from Random House to publish a book of the same name and topic.
Joe Wikert on the TeleRead Blog breaks down why it’s unlikely this book will ever earn back its advance but what interests me is the fact that agents are so aggressively coming online to find talent.
The article states:
“There was an innocent time, oh, about four years ago, when the idea of turning a blog into a book seemed novel, a fresh path for unknown writers to break into the big time.
The outcry over Mr. Lander’s book deal suggests the trend that has been building for a half decade may have finally reached apogee.”
The article then mentions numerous Bloggers who have received book contracts. Agents are looking for talent online. The success of Bloggers also tests the long-held notion that publishing online hurts a writer’s chances of landing a book deal.
Tags: agents, blog to book, publishing, publishing online