2007 Blooker Short List Announced

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March 15, 2007 |

Paul Glazowski

What becomes of a serial blog? Why, it’s a blook. At least when it’s bound and has an ISBN attached to its rear. A horrible name, “blook” is. So is blog, but there are about a billion people around the world that are quite alright with that term, so why not the other? Anyway, the point of all this blog-blook stuff is to show how far the genre has come. How do we know it’s got legs? The top blook gets a prize.

The Lulu Blooker Prize hasn’t been around for a long while (two years now) but it’s gotten the attention of the international news media, so that’s something. Maybe it has to do with the $10,000 first prize. Well, maybe not.

The Blooker Prize is a wee little thing among the Nobels, the Whitbreads (now the Costa Book Awards) and the National Book Awards, but it’s quite different from all other annual nominations. The money isn’t what makes the entries (Nor is it that way for any other event); it’s Lulu that does. Literally.

Lulu, a small but growing self-publishing outfit, presents the annual award for Best Blook and the top pick from a trio of categories – non-fiction, fiction, comics – which will likely expand as new avenues emerge in the blook genre. Because of the strength of web-based social structures and the incredible effectiveness of word of mouth online, last year’s overall winner, Julie & Julia, went on to sell 100,000 copies.

The short list for 2007’s Blooker Prize is now published. From over 100 submissions, 15 were chosen to be in the running. The short list is as follows:

Non-Fiction

Crashing the Gate, by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas

My Secret: A PostSecret Book, by Frank Warren

My War: Killing Time In Iraq, by Colby Buzzell

Small Is The New Big: and 183 other riffs, rants, and remarkable business ideas, by Seth Godin

So Close: Infertile and Addicted to Hope, by Tertia Albertyn

Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language From the South of France, by Kristin Espinasse

Fiction

Albert The Third (UK) / (US), by Slim Palmer

BreakupBabe: A Novel, by Rebecca Agiewich

The Doorbells of Florence, by Andrew Losowsky

Messages from the Lost Continent, conceived and edited by Horst Prillinger