Book Deal for “Stuff Hipsters Hate”

By Jason Boog 

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Yesterday two blogging journalists, Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich, landed a book deal for their satirical Tumblr page, “Stuff Hipsters Hate.”

After reading the news, this GalleyCat editor contacted the bloggers’ agent, Jason Allen Ashlock from Movable Type Literary Group. We asked one burning question: What do these authors bring to the jaded world of blog-to-book deals that we haven’t seen before?

Ashlock responded: “The blog to book projects seem tired because so many of them have been one-trick ponies. They’re based around a gimmick: They tell a joke and then they tell it again and again. Image, caption, laugh. Image, caption, laugh. Their concepts are thin. The ones that have been really successful, and have a chance of making the backlist, have had a clear editorial voice: there’s an honest critique or cultural observation built into the ostensibly humorous project.”

He continued: “Stuff Hipsters Hate appealed to me for two reasons. First, it was a Tumblr site, so it had already been formed in a community and so wasn’t just being read, but was part of a subculture’s conversation about itself. I really think Tumblr is far superior in many ways to other blogging platforms because of this community dynamic.”


Ashlock concluded: “Second, the authors are truly writers. Their humor is not a result of a cheap gimmick; they have voice. I met the authors after their site had been up about a month, and no one knew yet that this site playfully blowing the whistle on indie scorn was written by two sweet, self-effacing magazine editors, a couple of soft-spoken twenty-something girls from Williamsburg.”

“They had so perfectly developed this voice that most readers thought the authors were a couple of bros from Manhattan. In other words, it was clear to me that they could really write, and not only would that talent would make this a more substantial blog-to-book project, but also that these two had writing careers ahead of them. And that’s what I’m looking for: career authors, not one-offs.”

Read more on the deal Publishers Marketplace.