If the internet is killing books, the blog to book deal is an ironic reward for blogosphere fame, writes Sarah Hromack in the July/August issue of The Brooklyn Rail. She writes:
How strangely anachronistic is it (and yet, extraordinarily telling) that those who participate in perhaps the most monumental democratic exercise ever–and who do so daily, often for a living–would seek to tame the great, unbridled, immaterial beast that is the Internet with some high-gloss stock and two binding boards? How thoroughly odd it is that one would attempt to translate the particular digital reading experience of the Tumblr blog, or Twitter feed, or Facebook update into an analog one.
The blogger book deal also upholds the lasting value of the physical book over the fleeting nature of digital content, which is doomed to fade into the vast archives of the internet over time. The book deal may be a blogger’s one chance to prove his or her legacy to future generations. “It’s hard to deny an opportunity to see our names memorialized in a tangible, keepsake form. We can’t literally hand the Internet down to our children, after all.”
Source: The Brooklyn Rail
