From blog to print: war stories make for a great read

Instead of spelling a death to printing, the act of blogging is in fact driving print sales as many blogs by popular writers are being published in book format. Colby Buzzell, a former US machine gunner was once just an anonymous writer who kept an online journal to pass the time while fighting in Iraq. That blog was then published under the title My War: Killing Time in Iraq which even earned the praise of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.



But Buzzell's greatest achievement came this week when he was awarded the Blooker prize for the best book of the year based on a blog. Buzzell isn't the first writer whose blog has been printed and received critical acclaim. The phenomenon first began with Salam Pax - better known as the Baghdad Blogger. His blog, Where is Raed? which provided a controversial account of the Iraq war was so popular that it was soon being quoted in The Guardian, talked about on CNN and later, appeared in book format.

Random House, Buzzell's Australian publisher said that, like chick-lit or anonymous erotica, blogging is the new black. "Publishers are very keen on this new genre and book buyers seem to enjoy them," said Karen Reid, head of publicity.

Reid also said that people do not always buy books simply because they're blogs; the content is what makes the book a drawcard, and war is often a sales winner. "We've also had great success with military books that come from journals," Reid said. "This may prove that if it's well written, a good story and a subject that interests people it will sell no matter how it came to be a book."

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