Robert Scoble writes in jest:

We got a blog book war going on.

Though the word “war” might be a tad un-PC in light of our current situation in Iraq, several bloggers are working on blog-related books. Scoble is working on a blog-related book with Shel Israel and at least the method by which they are working on the book is interesting, though I’m not so sure how compelling or useful the book itself will be. The plan is that they are going to discuss the book on their new collaborative MSN Spaces blog titled: The Red Couch. Scoble said they’d actually write and share the book there, but if they do that then they won’t be able to sell first publishing rights to any print publisher (they would have already published it there “first”), so I doubt that’s exactly how it will go down if they are indeed setting their sights on traditional print publishing. Most print publishers won’t talk to them if they’ve already sold or given away first publishing rights.

I sure hope this new batch of blogging-related books doesn’t read like the first batch of books about blogs/blogging. Most of those were for people completely new to blogging and of little use to regular bloggers and/or business people wanting to use blogs as a marketing / PR tool, IMO.

I’d wager that the primary audience for blogging-related books is going to be bloggers themselves, so sales of these books are probably going to be minimal. Even though there’s lots more bloggers now, there’s still a relatively small number of regular, active bloggers and the number of bloggers interested in buying a book about blogging can’t be very large at this time. Publishers, if they are smart anyway, are still going to see a blogging-related book as a niche audience at best.

However, if through these books, these authors can reach an audience of business people who are not already bloggers, it could open up some doors for consultants (hence one of the reason I think Jeremy Wright might be doing this).

From a volume perspective, Scoble already writes a book a month through his blogging efforts and he reads one at least every night, so output shouldn’t be a problem for him at least (but quantity doesn’t make for a good book, quality does). Israel writes longer, more pensive blog entries, so the voice that comes out between these two should be interesting at the least.

Jeremy Wright could tell some business-related stories about his blog being sold and auctioning off his blogging services on eBay, which I suspect will be at least two of his chapters. I’m not sure what the other bloggers working on books might be like because I haven’t checked out their blogs yet.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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