RhetoricVille

US cook wins blogging book prize (BBC News)

Earlier this week, a cooking blog turned into a cooking book won the first literary prize (the “Blooker”) for such transformations. Julie Powell blogged about her efforts to cook all of the recipes in a 1961 book on French cooking by Julie Child. The book version of Powell’s blog has now sold 100,000 copies. She beat out a London hooker/ blogger in the overall and non-fiction categories of contest sponsored by the website Lulu.

The fiction award went to Cherie Priest for her Southern Gothic novel Four and Twenty Blackbirds.

What I take from Powell’s win is that blooks based on a marathon obsession are the way to go. Do something every day, and write about it. Write well, but write regardless. People will come back to the blog just to see if you are still at it. Then your cult-following becomes a natural audience for the book.