Which, truth be told, is exactly how I’d want to do it – little things like having a career, building an audience, developing my ability, don’t you know. So it’s just a bit in the Department of Obvious that the mini-boom of bloggers with book deals is starting to subside, as the Boston Herald’s Lauren Beckham Falcone discovers.
“They haven’t performed as well as publishers hoped,” said Boston-based literary agent Jill Kneerim. “It is still a phenomenon that people are hopeful about, but in many cases, people who are fans of the blog have already read the content. So what’s the point in buying the book?” A good question, as it relates to disappointing sales for Ana Marie Cox‘s DOG DAYS (though she’s doing just fine with the Time.com job and a new book proposal to work on) Stephanie Klein‘s STRAIGHT UP AND DIRTY and Jeremy Blachman‘s ANONYMOUS LAWYER.
But – and I never thought I would say this – Tucker Max sums things up best: “These bloggers aren’t good writers and they really don’t get a lot of traffic if you really look at the numbers,” he said. “They had a blog, people liked reading the blog, then they wrote stuff people don’t want to read. Who cares what Jessica Cutler‘s novel is about? People liked reading she had sex with senators who paid her (money).” In other words, a platform is only going to take you so far…