blog-to-book workshop

Blog-to-book workshop / fiction & memoir

– 8 WEEKS / SATURDAYS 9AM – NOON / STARTING OCT. 30
– MAX. ENROLLMENT 12
– $400

– Are you a blogger who has thought about trying to transform your blog into something larger, but you’re not sure how to begin? Are you working on a book, but want feedback and help with the process? Are you looking to find the right blog project to tackle, with an eye toward using it as the foundation for a book? If so, this workshop is for you.

– We’ll take a look at successful blog-to-book projects in the fiction and memoir space, and see how the writers transformed their blog entries into something that took on a completely new form and was able to work as a book.

– We’ll spend significant time workshopping each of your projects, figuring out possible approaches to turning your blog into a book, finding the right hook, potential story arcs, ways to build on your current material and take it in new and compelling directions.

– We’ll also talk about the practical side of things — how to build a larger audience, how to get attention from agents and publishers, how to put together a book proposal, and how to use traditional media as well as social networking to start and build a platform and find success.

– There will be a series of guests to help us, sharing their experiences and perspectives, including authors and book editors.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE:

Week One / Blog-to-Book: An Introduction

– We will look at a series of blog-to-book examples that have worked, and some that haven’t — and discuss some of the reasons why.
– We will begin to workshop each of your projects, with a sharing and brainstorming exercise that will help you start to think about opening up new worlds for your characters.

Week Two / Finding Your Voice

– Identifying the unique selling proposition behind your blog — why you are the only writer for this project, and how to maintain an authentic voice even while expanding beyond just the blog.
– Begin round one of in-depth workshopping (character and story) — 4 blogs each week.

Week Three / Developing Story

– GUEST TBA

Week Four / Enriching the World

Week Five / Structure and Format

– Begin round two of in-depth workshopping (structure and audience growth) — 4 blogs each week.

Week Six / Making the Blog-to-Book Transition

–GUEST TBA

Week Seven / Building Your Audience

–GUEST TBA

Week Eight / Paths to Publication

–GUEST TBA

—–
Jeremy Blachman is the author of the novel Anonymous Lawyer (Henry Holt, 2006), a satire about corporate law called “wickedly amusing” by USA Today and “very funny” by The Wall Street Journal. It was also named one of the best books of 2006 by The Rocky Mountain News. The book, inspired by Blachman’s fictional Anonymous Lawyer blog (http://anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com), was published in paperback by Picador and has also been released in the UK, Italy, Poland, Thailand, Korea, and Israel, and is soon to be published in Russia.

After publication, television rights to the book were optioned by Sony, and Blachman co-wrote a pilot script with Jeff Rake (“Cashmere Mafia”) for an Anonymous Lawyer sitcom for NBC. The project spent two years in development with Sony and NBC. Blachman is currently working with Sony on another sitcom pilot, and shopping a screenplay version of his book.

Blachman started his Anonymous Lawyer blog while a student at Harvard Law School. Written from the fictional perspective of a jaded, middle-aged law firm hiring partner, the blog built a readership of over 100,000 visitors per month. Blachman was profiled in a front page article in The New York Times Sunday Style section. The profile led to attention from agents and editors, and the book deal soon followed. The novel took the blog in an entirely new direction, with over 75% new material, and new characters and a storyline created specifically for the book.  Read more about his blog-to-book transition here.

To promote the novel, Blachman created a parody law firm web site (http://anonymouslawfirm.com), complete with podcasts and interactive features. The site went viral, with over 60,000 unique visitors in the first 72 hours after launch– and over 11,000 opt-in e-mail addresses collected.

Blachman has also freelanced for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal law blog, and Moment magazine, among other publications. He is a graduate of Princeton University, and has publishing experience as an editorial associate for Rugged Land Books and as ghostwriter for a number of titles.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE WORKSHOP, send me an e-mail.