Write well...

...the publishers are putting together teams of people to do nothing but read blogs...looking for you bloggers whose blogs might make a publishable book with some editing. Now before you get nervous, just remember that only about one in 20,000 submissions get turned into a book. Today, USA Today did an article on the blogs to books picked so far....and that includes Colby Buzzell, I'm happy to say. So here's the article:

"Publishers put bloggers between the coversBy Carol Memmott, USA TODAY

Conventional wisdom would seem to suggest that bloggers — people who post personal stories and fiction on their Internet Web logs — would turn up their noses at the brick-and-mortar world of book publishing. After being fired for writing about her Capitol Hill sex life, blogger Jessica Cutler was offered a book deal with Hyperion.

By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY

So much for conventional wisdom. From Washington tell-alls to people on the front lines of Iraq, bloggers are jumping on the publishing bandwagon in a trend that industry insiders say benefits both writers and publishers."Anything that helps someone who is writing come to the attention of the public is going to help them on their road to being published," says Robert Miller, president of Hyperion, which in June will release The Washingtonienne, a novel by Jessica Cutler.

She's the woman who a year ago, on her short-lived blog, gained notoriety in Washington, D.C., for dishing about her sexual escapades on Capitol Hill. For publishers, Miller says, such notoriety provides a head start in attracting attention. "The hardest thing for publishers is getting any one book noticed, out of the 50,000-plus books published every year."

Another Washington blogger, Ana Marie Cox, the cheeky thirtysomething behind Wonkette (wonkette.com), also is writing a novel, Dog Days, due in October. It's a roman à clef set between the Democratic and Republican national conventions.Her publisher is Riverhead Books, where associate editor Megan Lynch says a big benefit of blogging is that it allows writers "to really hone a voice, and that's something that, to me as an editor, is very important to find."

While Cutler and Cox are turning toward narrative fiction, others are sticking with the blog form or developing traditional memoirs on blog topics:

•Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq by the pseudonymous Riverbend, a twentysomething Iraqi (in stores). The book contains a year's worth of blog entries (riverbendblog.blogspot.com) about living in war-torn Baghdad.

•Anonymous Lawyer (tentative title) by Jeremy Blachman (fall 2006). The Harvard Law student's fictional blog (anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com) is the basis for a novel in blog form about life inside a law firm where a senior partner commits an indiscretion that gets blown out of proportion.

•I'm Not the New Me: A Memoir by Wendy McClure (April 26). The book covers the same territory as McClure's Web site (Poundy.com): her struggles with weight and body image.

•My War by Colby Buzzell (fall). In the memoir, the U.S. Army soldier, whose blog entries (cbftw.blogspot.com) depict the Iraq war from the G.I. point of view, will expand on his front-line reports.

•Straight Up & Dirty: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein (April 2006). Klein's book, like her Sex and the City-like blog (stephanieklein.blogs.com), will recount her life as a divorcée in New York.
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Gonna guess, but I think one of the things that will be keying those publishers into giving a hard look at a particular blog would be the mentions of that blog on many other blogs. That would sure as hell cause me to take a look.
Wrap..