Comments on: HarperCollins Pays Big Advance For A Book Of… Tweets

By: Blogs that Make Money

Blogs that Make Money — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:37:10 +0000

That is actually a cool idea. Funny how print (newspapers) seems to be dying and the market for books is just getting better and better. Good luck to Nick that's a great project to be involved in.

By: Carlin M. Wragg

Carlin M. Wragg — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:43:08 +0000

Marci, during the month of February the social networking site Goodreads (www.Goodreads.com) sponsored a "status update" writing contest. Goodreads members were invited to enter the contest and, over any 24-hour period in February, post, serial-style, 140-character status updates that cumulatively created a story. After the contest was announced, "popular demand" prompted Goodreads to open it up to Twitter users. A short list will be announced in March and the community will be invited to vote on a winner.

Is this the kind of writing contest that's here to stay? Maybe so. Virginia Heffernan for The New York Times magazine recently wrote an interesting article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15wwln-medium-t.html) about the status update phenomenon. She focused on Facebook but, as you suggest, this kind of microblogging seems suited to many platforms. Nick, between SMITH Magazine's collection and your book on the horizon I bet there's a lot more short-form composition to come.

By: Nick Douglas

Nick Douglas — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:27:28 +0000

Thanks for the link! I think Gawker kind of missed the point, even though I gave their writer some examples of witty tweets, like "Why aren't martini glasses shaped so that they don't spill so easily on the bus?" (by http://twitter.com/pagecrusher).

The book was partly inspired by "Not Quite What I Was Planning," a collection of six-word memoirs edited by SMITH Magazine. That book's wild success (a hardcover edition and a second volume on love and relationships came out last year) convinced HarperCollins that short-form anthologies can be more than fly-by-night gift-shop books, so they're working with me to make a truly entertaining book that might even withstand a cover-to-cover reading.

By: Marci

Marci — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:59:54 +0000

Not willing to wager, but curious to know if there's been a Twitter novel yet. Or any 140-character short story contests. Twitter haiku? And heck…why not an annual Webby awards for witty twitterers?