The Lulu Blooker Prize

So, here's the big news: Today Lulu is announcing the the creation of a new, independent literary prize specifically for blooks, or books based on blogs (or similar web sites). The categories will be fiction, nonfiction, and web comics.

The annual competition will be called The Lulu Blooker Prize. The chair of the judges the first year will be Cory Doctorow who among many other things is the author of  Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (first published independently on the web) as well as the recent Someone Comes to Town. Someone Leaves Town.

The prize is open to books from ALL quarters, whether published independently (through Lulu or iUniverse or whoever) or published conventionally (Random House, Tor, etc.). The books have to have been written in English, have had their origins in material posted on a web site (see my previous post on blooks), and each entrant will have to send three hard copies, along with the entry form, to the contest address. Prizes? $2,000 to the overall winner, and $1,000 to the winner in each of the other two categories.

Oh yes, and there will also be a Blooker blog. Full details of the announcement appear below. Should be lots of fun.

Announcing “The Blooker Prize,” the World’s First Literary Prize for “Blooks,” alias Books Based On Blogs or Websites

October 10, 2005 (London, UK and Raleigh, NC) – The world’s first literary prize for books based on blogs or websites – known for short as “blooks” – is announced Monday by its sponsor, Lulu (www.lulu.com), a website that enables anyone to publish and sell their own books.

The Lulu Blooker Prize (www.LuluBlookerPrize.com) will be a global competition honoring the hybrid literary form of blooks, a new form of an old media and one of the hottest new publishing and online trends.

The prize will honor blooks in three categories: fiction, non-fiction, and web-comics. The overall winner will receive $2,000, and winners in the other two categories $1,000 each, in addition to a small piece of literary immortality and something approaching glory in the expanding realm known as the blogosphere.

The contest, which is open to books published by conventional publishing houses as well as independent (self) publishers, will be judged by a panel of figures prominent in both the online and offline publishing worlds, chaired by Cory Doctorow (www.craphound.com), the noted, London-based science-fiction author, blogger co-editor of BoingBoing (www.boingboing.net) the world’s most linked-to blog.

Doctorow, who develops his own books from notes and ideas posted on his weblog, believes that blooks are distinct from traditional books:

“Blogs encourage their authors to publish in small, partially formed chunks,” says Doctorow. “Previously, they might have been kept in the author’s notebook, but something amazing happens when you post them online: readers help you connect them, flesh them out and grow them into fully-fledged books or blooks.”

Other judges include Robin “Roblimo” Miller (www.roblimo.com) of Slashdot (www.slashdot.org) and Paul Jones (www.ibiblio.org/pjones/wordpress/), founder of iBiblio.org. All judging will be independent of the contest sponsor and no favor will be shown to blooks published on Lulu.

The Lulu Blooker Prize, whose title is an affectionate nod to another important literary prize, will take place annually. Winners will be announced April 3, 2006. Details for submitting blooks for consideration appear at www.LuluBlookerPrize.com.

About Lulu (www.lulu.com): Lulu is the world's fastest growing source of print-on-demand book publishing. Founded by Bob Young, who previously co-founded Red Hat, the open source software company, Lulu provides independent publishers with free access to on-demand publishing tools for books, e-books, music, DVDs, images and calendars.