Blooker Prize Succeeds

Last week the BBC did a radio interview on blooks (books which spring from blogs).  Today there are articles in both USA Today and The Guardian about the winners of the Lulu Blooker Prize. hackoff.com, which is runner-up in the fiction category, is getting many times its usual web traffic with referrals from these articles.

Getting “main stream media” attention is a problem for debut authors – particularly those who are self-published.  Attention in the blogosphere is helpful – probably soon will be a sine qua non for successful books – but it’s not enough today when people are still used to reading book reviews where they’ve always read them.  Print-on-demand publisher Lulu has helped bridge the gap by creating a prize and publicizing it.  The resulting press coverage is the proof.

Here are all the winners as listed in USA Today:

Grand prize and nonfiction: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell (Little, Brown) blogs.salon.com/0001399 

Non-fiction runner-up: Biodiesel Power by Lyle Estill (New Society Publishers) http://www.biofuels.coop/blog

Fiction: Four and Twenty Blackbirds, by Cherie Priest (Tor Books) wicked-wish.livejournal.com 

Fiction runner-up: Hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble by Tom Evslin (dotHill Press) blog: www.hackoff.com

Comic-blook: Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection by Zach Miller (Boxcar Comics, Lulu.com) www.joeandmonkey.com 

Comic-blook runner-up: Dinosaur Comics: Huge Eyes, Beaks, Intelligence, and Ambition by Ryan North (CatPrint) www.qwantz.com