Can you Blurb your Blog Into a Book?

Yes, you can, says Jeff MacIntire in Wired News. Here's a snippet of his article, with a link to the full article at the end. 

Those who can't publish, blog. It's one of the enduring knocks against the blogosphere. But what happens when any blogger, or blog reader, has one-button access to cheaply printing a neatly bound, customized slice of Kottke.org?

Blurb.com, a self-publishing startup, will invite 600 bloggers this week to test out its new service by creating a free bound copy of their blog. It's a fresh shot across the bow to traditional publishers in an industry already facing disruptive changes from digital giants Google and Amazon.

Blurb CEO Eileen Gittins wants to position Blurb authors at the forefront of an increasingly digital publishing landscape, where a high Technorati rank is as important as a place on The New York Times bestseller list in traditional publishing.

"Increasingly, content is becoming structured," she said. "We're working to allow people to read and publish from tags, for instance. Blog is just one flavor of content we will slurp. Distribution in the publishing industry is becoming all about making a book discoverable across the web, increasing its visibility to potential readers." Gittins likes to point out the emerging markup language standard for cookbooks, RecipeML.

The blog-to-book feature isn't cheap. An 8-by-10 full-color, hardcover book with custom dust jacket costs between $30 and $80. But it's part of a larger attempt to nip at the heels of its better-known competitors including Lulu and iUniverse by offering features they don't (others include extensive customization options, an e-commerce storefront, and forthcoming tagging and metadata add-ons). Blurb executives are also making the conference rounds, from last year's PopTech to this spring's Maker Faire, as well as this November's Web 2.0 Conference, where Gittins plans to create a bound conference compendium on stage in 10 minutes.

To read the full article, go here:

http://www.wired.com/