Blooker Prize Blog

Classifying blooks

Although I'm evidently at risk of getting brutally punched in the face for it, I'm going to talk a bit about blooks--specifically, how they are being classified. The Blooker gets awarded in three broad categories (fiction, non-fiction, and webcomics...but you all know that by now, right?), but the line that separates them is often fuzzy at best. For all you blauthors out there (I wonder if I'll get for that? A kick to the neck?) who have memoirs with fictionalized parts, stories based loosely on actual events, or even fiction based on a webcomic, I suggest you use your best judgment as to which Blooker category you submit your blook to. If the review committee feels that a particular blook should be considered for a category other than the one listed in the entry form, it will. (The entry will not be disqualified.)

Obviously, categorization isn't an exact science, and there are always going to be alternative schemes. In an article on the growing phenomenon of blooks, SpokesmanReview.com recently defined four primary categories (with examples) into which most blooks can be can be placed.

1. "High-concept nonfiction derived from quirky, humerus sites" (Julie & Julia by Julie Powell)
2. "Political broadsides" (How Would a Patriot Act? and Bush Agonistes, both by Glenn Greenwald)
3. "Novels inspired by blogs" (Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman, Dog Days by Ana Marie Cox--the original Wonkette)
4. "Memoirs based on blogs" (Belle de Jour: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog From Iraq by Riverbend, Abandoned: The True Story of Girl Who Didn't Belong by Anya Peters, New York Hack, and Waiter Rant)

It's good to see two of last year's entries included, as well as two that have been already been entered (but not yet submitted) for this year. Hopefully, we'll see all the rest of the blooks on this list (and a whole lot more) in the contest by January 15!

I know that all of this pigeonholing is merely an academic exercise, but I would also add at least two more major categories to the above list: novels serialized in blogs (Hackoff.com, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Gus Openshaw's Whale-killing Journal--just to name a few), and books based on webcomics. Also, it is not entirely clear to me the difference between categories 1 and 4, but I suppose there's not much I can do but sit back, jaw clenched, and wait for the flurry of punches that are surely racing across the Atlantic at this very moment to deal out righteous judgment.

How to blookify your blog

Following the controversy sparked by the launch of The Blooker Prize over who first invented the word "blook," we would like to suggest another new word, which, as far as we know, we can safely claim to have invented: "blookify", a transitive verb meaning to take the contents of a blog or website and render them into a printed or bound book (i.e. blook).

Blookification can take several forms, as demonstrated by the wide variety of blooks already entered in The Blooker, but sometimes it's as straightforward as converting the contents of a blog directly to a blook. Case in point: small business owner Warren Meyer, who recently turned the first year of his Coyote Blog into a blook (well, two blooks to be specific). In this post he describes the process in detail - a lengthy process to be sure, but one that has become increasingly easier with the advent of self-publishing services like Lulu.com. Mr. Meyer hasn't entered The Blooker yet, but he's blookified his blog, and that's the first step.

Controversy erupts over the term blooks!

Just when you think you've been original.

A bit of controversy has arisen over the term 'blook' itself, which turns out to have not one (see today's post on the blog Greg Writes), but at least two prior claimants. One of them has managed to get his version of the etymology listed in the Wikipedia (at least until the editors get to work). But a more credible, and complete, history of the word shows up on the blog Tonypierce.com, who credits the original term to the inimitable Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine.

Even so, with a million monkeys blogging someone was bound to invent it over again (even though there are those who object).

Blook

blook (bluk), n. A printed and bound book, based on a blog (cf. web log) or web site; a new stage in the life-cycle of content, if not a new category of content and a new dawn for the book itself. cf. The Lulu Blooker Prize (“The Blooker”), a literary prize founded in 2005 for blooks. [der. Eng. book, a bound collection of sheets of paper; blog (abbrev. web log, an internet journal, diary or personal web site)]