This is a sensible point: why would a publisher not want to capitalize on the fact that an author has a popular blog?
Note that it seems not to have occurred to OUP that mentioning LH might actually bring hordes of readers clamouring for the book. Some believe in God without knowing whether one exists; some know the Internet exists without believing in it.
A lot of the books that make it onto my reading list get there by way of a blog recommendation.
upyernoz | 01-Aug-09 at 8:50 am | Permalink
a similar question recently came up at our local drinking liberally. it seems a popular blog isn’t actually worth that much in terms of book sales. kos has an enormous audience and yet his book was basically a flop. a lot of his readers felt they could get their daily dose of kos for free online, there’s no need to buy anything.
successful books by bloggers seem to be books by bloggers who are also journalists or academics and thus already had an audience beyond the blog subculture. that and bloggers who write novelty-type books. i understand “stuff white people like” did okay as a book.
so i’m not sure how much extra audience a blogger would get if the published publicized his or her blogginess. it actually makes more sense for the blogger to publicize the book on the blog than the publisher to do anything, that’s where the people who admire the blogger as a blogger are likely to see it.
Chris | 01-Aug-09 at 9:39 am | Permalink
Huh. I suppose I can’t extrapolate very reliably from my own experience. If I like a blogger, I’m especially likely to read his or her book, and especially likely to read books he or she recommends. But you know, it really doesn’t take much effort to name the blog, which is more than some publishers seem to want to do.