A Walk in the Snark (22 page)

But you don’t have to be a blogger rock star to expand your blog platform into a book.

Look on the Amazon.com nonfiction lists. You will find it populated by hundreds of blogs that have successfully made the transition to book (mine included).

And luckily, you already have market research to see if your book is marketable. You have your blog following (and hopefully a strong social media platform to go with it).

So, our first step to see if you have what it takes to go from blog to book is…

How do you know that you have enough material to convert your blog into a book?

For your blog to book to have a shot out in the marketplace, the IBC recommends that you have AT LEAST 100 blog posts that have or are currently generating at least 100 blog hits per post. Not any 100, but definite clicks to each post itself. Extra, accidental traffic doesn’t count.

How can you tell the difference?

When you monitor your blog statistics, be sure to analyze what pages and posts are visited, where the clicks originated from, and what terms were used to get there. A percentage of every blog has traffic that are readers who simply came across your site through Google searches and more.

Remember that blog posts are generally only 250 to 500 words.

If you multiply 500x100, you have a total of 50,000 words, which gets you into the ballpark of book length.

Also remember that you are going to be marketing your blog-to-book FAR outside your established blog readership, therefore we must make your blog-to-book into well… an actual book. To sell your book on the open market, we must move past the blog mentality and adopt an author mentality.

And having enough words on the page to attract a non-follower is a great start.

But just a start. If you have the quantity, we must now check to see if you have the quality.

The key indicators that your blog will have wide appeal in the marketplace are…

• Have you experienced something that few others have?

Such as you lived at the bottom of the ocean for six months, or you lived in Taiwan racing crickets. It really doesn’t matter, as long as your experience is far afield from everyday life so that people can escape into your book for a little while.

• You write about fairly ordinary topics, yet have a unique spin on them.

Such as my situation when I asked… “Why, after seventeen years, my husband STILL can’t replace a toilet paper roll?” This struck a nerve with my readership. I then followed up with “Men are from
Seinfeld
. Women are from
Friends
.” And The Mancode was born.

For this type of book, being funny goes a long way. If you can make them laugh (which you already know from your blog readership), you can write about just anything you want.

• You are an expert in your field.

Now having a PhD doesn’t hurt, but you also don’t need one to be an expert in many fields. As long as you have substantial experience and a strong point of view, go for it. Of course, you must also consider the legal consequences if you give any advice relating to health (physical or mental) or safety issues.

Even I, a humor writer who says things like “How many men does it take to change a light bulb? I don’t know because it has never happened,” had to have a legal disclaimer in my book that I was NOT giving relationship advice and in no way could
A Walk in the
Snark
be construed as a relationship “guide” of any kind.

So put your opinion out there, but be sure to let everyone know that it is JUST YOUR OPINION and should not be taken as legal or health advice.

Once you’ve determined that you have both the length and content suitable to evolve a blog into a book, other considerations will come up.

How do you make this book worth the purchase price, given that your blog is out there for

free?

By adding new, exclusive material.

The IBC usually recommends that any book based on a blog has to have at least 25 percent brand-new material that has never been seen on your blog before, and will be EXCLUSIVE to your book.

The time for free milk from the cow is over. If your loyal fans want to read every word you have written, they must now buy your book.

But remember, to new readers, your entire book is new, and you can market it as you would any other book on the shelves.

But what if you have no additional 25 percent to add? What if you’ve thoroughly tapped your very targeted focus?

Expanding your brand, and thereby overall blog direction, will be a great way to flesh out your blog posts.

As I was assembling my Mancode posts, I suspected that I did not have enough content to really round out an entire book. Luckily, like most writers, I also had so many related concepts floating around in my head, it was fairly easy to branch out!

So I came up with Chickspeak and KidKode, and since it related to my already well-established brand involving the male/female dynamic, I really did not have to change my brand or direction much at all. If anything, expanding my content enhanced my brand and platform.

As you flesh out your content and begin assembling the posts into a cohesive manuscript, you’ll immediately notice that blog structure and book structure differ.

Read more:
Dollars & Sense: The Definitive Guide to Self-Publishing Success

The Mancode: Exposed

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

Just saw a very funny
Youtube video
about the differences between men and women.

The comedian says men have inside their brain A Nothing Box. It’s how they can fish or zone out on TV for hours at a time.

He also says women can’t stand it when we see our men in The Nothing Box. Because we’re always abuzz with Something. Women can’t do Nothing. Why?

Women attach emotion to experiences, so everything becomes burned into our memories. Men don’t remember stuff. Not because they don’t feel emotion. They do.
Mostly it’s because they just don’t care
.

Sure, it’s very stereotypical. But it’s also very, very funny.

Earlier in our marriage, my husband and I decided that every few years we’d go to marriage counseling. We’re both believers in occasional therapy and feel it’s an important way to discuss feelings that may be uncomfortable in a one-on-one setting. Not like “your breath is stinky” but more like “when you walk around with the remote control in your pants I want to kill you.”

Like that.

I asked our therapist if he felt JP had ADD, because it seemed to me he just didn’t listen. He seemed distracted when I spoke, and I didn’t feel like he was giving me the attention I needed. The therapist put him through a series of tests and came back to us with his results: totally fine.

Therapist: “He probably just tunes you out because he doesn’t really care what you’re talking about at that moment in time.”

In other words: Um, yea. He’s a typical man.

Chicks like to provide backstory. Men want the bottom line. All that stuff we tell them? It’s just BUZZZZZ. They don’t hear it. It’s all noise that’s preventing them from getting to the ending, the good stuff. What’s the bottom line?

Mancode Rule #4,543,232:
Men are from destination. Women are from journey.

Men can’t listen when we launch into our explanations. They are physically incapable. They stare off into space. They get the jimmy leg. They’d pretty much rather be anywhere but here. It’s not that they don’t care; they
can’t
care. They are unable to hear all of that precursor stuff that means everything to us,
because it means nothing to them
.

Why? They don’t need to know all that stuff. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything because they’re already at the table waiting for you, while you’re still on the phone making the reservation.

It just doesn’t matter.

Yet for us? All that stuff? Those are our signs. We enjoy our journey. We like to go slow, explain things. This is how we women get places. It’s our map. We talk about what leads up to situations because that’s our path, our direction. And what do men do with directions?

Please
.

Need
I ask where this is going? (Um, yea. Cause I’m a chick.)

Men drive and figure it out as they go. They will not stop to ask – god, no. That shows vulnerability. (Note to map guys: you will look at your maps. You will consult your maps. But you will not ask for help on your maps. And do not get me started on the folding.)

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, maps, journey, directions, destinations – yea, I
could
be talking about sex. I’m not saying I am. But I
could
be.

Okay sure yea, I totally am.

An example: The other day ALL my iPhone apps stopped working, suddenly, and for no apparent reason. Husband: “Well, you must have done something to screw it up.”

Okay, problem-solver, thanks. I called AT&T, who put me on with Apple. Turns out
husband
had changed the email and password (to keep the kids from downloading apps on their iPads, haha) and that’s what was causing the problem. They could walk through the solution with him – at a cost of $40. (It’s called Apple Care. I love how
caring
they are.)

He was having none of that.
He
would figure it out. By
himself.

None of what I said had apparently radiated the depths of his Mancode brain.

He was man. He would fix. Grunt.

Ahem.

Several hours, a temper tantrum and much cursing later, guess who was ultimately on the phone with Apple Care? Sigh.

We had a good laugh about it the next day, but it was definitely tense at that moment. If he had followed directions, if he had
listened
, he could have solved the problem easily and without all the temper and angst.

Is it because he’s a man that he feels the need to figure stuff out on this own? (Can you hear my eyes rolling?)

Yes. Even he agrees with this. Men take action and then, when it doesn’t work out, think about it later when they have to backtrack to figure out where they screwed up. Where chicks go A to B to C to D because that’s what the map (or GPS, the best invention – next to Ziplocs – known to man ) says to do, men go Z to B to L to um, twelve.

Me: When did you think about where you messed up? Cause we certainly didn’t discuss it.

Him: In front of the TV. It’s where I do my best thinking.

Me: And by that you mean none at all?

Him: Exactly.

Now that’s what
I
call The Nothing Box.

The Mancode: Exposed
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